ANZ Chief Executive Officer Shayne Elliott speaks with Elizabeth Rudall, Head of Strategic Communications

Elizabeth Rudall: Thank you for joining us, Shayne. Today you're announcing the first half results for the bank. What are the key highlights?

Shayne Elliott: Great to be here and it is a really strong first half, and obviously for me, my last result as CEO and I – you know, I'll say it – I think it's a great way to finish. So, record first half – not just first half revenues actually – record revenues for any half in our history which is really pleasing to see. Coming off the back of two record years in terms of financial results, so that's good. The other highlight for me, of course, is strategic process. Financials are one thing – really, really important to keep the business going and shareholders rewarded for their capital – but really, the other highlight was the progress we’re making in our long-term strategy about building competitive advantage. And that's what we call our dual platform strategy – and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that later – but that's really about ANZ Plus, which hit some new highs, and Transactive Global, which is our big-end-of-town technical platform for banking.

Elizabeth Rudall: There have obviously been some significant changes since we last heard from you at the full year result, can you talk us through those changes and what they mean for the bank?

Shayne Elliott: Sure. The very first one is on Monday we welcome our new Chief Executive. Nuno Matos joins us here literally in a few days, and he'll be the next custodian of the bank, and it'll be my great pleasure to hand over the keys, if you will, to him on Monday - so that’s a big change for ANZ. Second change – we've entered into an enforceable undertaking with APRA, which we've talked about to the market just over a few weeks ago, which is pretty serious and we've got a lot of work to do there on non-financial risk management. I'm really confident that we have the right team and the right pathway to get there. We've done some really good work at ANZ over time around strategic risk management – de-risking the business and financial risk management – and we have to give the same focus around non-financial risk, and I'm confident we'll do that. And of course, the third big change is just the world around us has changed so materially. Now in banking the world's always changing, particularly when you're a regional or a global bank like us operating in multiple markets. But man, this has been a pretty profound change, with the tariff changes and trade disruption and geopolitics, and so those are the big environmental things that are really shaping our world, particularly here at ANZ, and will shape the way that we enter into the next phase of our development.

Elizabeth Rudall: You spoke earlier about ANZ’s dual platform strategy, can you update us on how that’s progressing?

Shayne Elliott: Sure. The dual platform strategy is really part – not the only – it's part of our response to ensure that ANZ is really set up to thrive in that volatile, uncertain world. What we need to do is make sure that we have the very, very best technology in the hands of our customers that's lower cost to operate, that really brings the tools – and gives the tools to help people live their lives better, go about their lives, improve their financial wellbeing or run their businesses better. And so we have these two platforms – one’s called Plus, and that’s for retail and ultimately will be for small business customers, and the other is called Transactive Global, and that's for the big-end-of-town. Transactive Global is actually where we started, so that's been up and running a lot longer. That is really just going from strength to strength, and so increasingly we're seeing more and more customers choosing that, and we have some really great advantages in that business, not just here in Australia and New Zealand, but right around the region. And then Plus is the newer – the baby sibling, if you will. It's only been in market for a couple of years, but the big highlight in this half, just recently we crossed through a million customers have chosen to use Plus. And what's pleasing there, we've just crossed through $21 billion in deposits – so there’s people bringing in real money there – and about 40 percent of them are engaging with our financial wellbeing offerings, again, the tools that we're giving them, and about half of those customers are actually saying, hey, ANZ Plus is their, or ANZ is their, main bank, so those are pretty exciting milestones.

Elizabeth Rudall: Now, Shayne, you mentioned before that this is your last set of results as CEO of ANZ. You were CFO when bluenotes first started, do you have a final takeaway for the bluenotes audience?

Shayne Elliott: I've been very privileged to be the CEO of ANZ for nine and a half years, and I do mean privileged. It's been a great honour. I did not get everything right, like in any situation or any leadership, but I'm confident that the bank I leave and the bank that I hand over to Nuno on Monday is a simpler bank than when I started. It's a stronger bank than when I started. And I fundamentally believe it's a better bank. Now it's not perfect and Nuno has work to do, but I'm really pleased with the progress we've made. I've been really privileged to be there. What I've loved the most has been the people – you would expect me to say that, but it's true. I’ve really loved all the support I've got from my colleagues right around ANZ and all the customers I've got to meet. And every time I meet a customer – big, small, farmer, manufacturer, whatever they might do, I learn something. And I hope that I'll have the opportunity to continue to learn in the future and I wish everybody at ANZ, including Nuno, the new CEO, the very, very best for what I know will be a thriving, great, future for ANZ and all of its customers.

Elizabeth Rudall: And on behalf of everyone at ANZ we thank you too Shayne. Thank you.

Shayne Elliott: Thanks.

Download PDF