ANZ CEO looks for India, China growth as customer focus shifts

ANZ Group Holdings chief executive officer Shayne Elliott aims to grow the firm’s presence in India and Vietnam as well as in China as his clients require the bank’s services in an increasing number of locations.

“Our business is shifting geographically quite fast,” Elliott said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Hong Kong on Monday (Mar 18). “We need to respond to that as a bank. We are building out our capability in places like India, or like Vietnam, to help with that capacity as we see those trade flows and capital flows shift.”

Most of the Australian bank’s business across Asia-Pacific is through its institutional bank, where the return-on-equity has grown to mid-single digits, up from around 3 per cent when Elliott became CEO more than eight years ago, he said. In mainland China, where ANZ has about 300 people, he expects the business to keep growing.

“Right now there is still an enormous demand for our services in mainland China,” he noted. “Our business there is growing, not shrinking, same here in Hong Kong. We will continue to invest in our platforms and capabilities in Hong Kong and mainland China.”

Investors are monitoring the next move from Elliott at ANZ after the lender was given the green light to acquire Suncorp Group’s banking arm. The firm earlier this month reduced its stake in Malaysia’s AMMB Holdings and Elliott said that the bank’s strategy was focused on exiting positions it has in Bank of Tianjin and Bank Pan Indonesia. “The sooner we can find more appropriate shareholders, the better,” he added.

In its home market of Australia, Elliott struck a more hawkish tone than that of the bank’s economists on the outlook for interest rates. “The house view is that we’ll probably see rate cuts towards the end of the calendar year; my personal view is that’s still optimistic,” he said. “Inflation is still more hard set in Australia and around the world than people think.” BLOOMBERG

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