Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s (ANZ) wealth division has remained soft over the first quarter and the bank is looking to the division’s new global chief to unlock its potential, ANZ’s chief executive said last week.
“The performance of our wealth business continues to be softer than we would like,” Mike Smith told a briefing on Friday.
“This is a sector-wide issue.”
Volumes in ANZ’s online broking arm, Etrade, and growth in funds under management were hit by volatile markets, the bank said. Insurance claims were also adverse over the quarter.
At the full-year results presentation just over three months ago, Smith said he was “a little bit disappointed with the bank’s wealth business”.
However, last week he said recent management changes aimed to unlock the potential of ANZ’s wealth business in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
As part of the changes, ANZ promoted Joyce Phillips to the role of global wealth and private banking chief executive.
Phillips is the group managing director of strategy, mergers and acquisitions, marketing and innovation. She takes up her new role on 1 March and was key to ANZ’s acquisition of a majority stake in ING Australia.
Smith’s comments were part of a quarterly market update on the bank’s performance over the three months to 31 December.
ANZ posted unaudited underlying profit of $1.48 billion, up 4.6 per cent from the previous quarter and up 4.1 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier.
ANZ said earlier this week it would cut 1000 jobs by October. It said employees in 492 of the roles, just under half the total, had already been informed that their positions would be eliminated.
“We’ve taken decisions, some of which have been painful for our customers and our staff to reset our business model to one that is leaner, more agile and more innovative,” Smith said.
A spokesman told InvestorDaily the job cuts would affect the bank’s wealth operations but declined to give details.
