ANZ's Asia Pacific strategy drives profit

cent/financial-crisis/chief-executive/

26 February 2009
| By Mike Taylor |
image
image
expand image

The ANZ Banking Group has more than met market expectations, using a trading update today to point to an Asia Pacific profit after tax of around 125 per cent with an Australian profit expectation of around 14 per cent.

But at the same time, the banking group has pointed to provisioning for the full year being higher than for 2008 at around $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion.

Commenting on the update, ANZ chief executive Mike Smith said he believed the group’s strategy for handling the global economic meltdown was paying off.

However, he said while Australia was better positioned than most other countries and had been remarkably resilient so far, this had not given the banking group immunity, and this would also be the case in 2009.

“We are also facing difficult conditions in New Zealand,” Smith said.

“In this environment, our underlying business is travelling well,” he said. “We are continuing to deal with legacy issues, managing the impact of the financial crisis and implementing our super regional strategy.”

Smith said the banking group had strengthened its balance sheet through increased provisioning and significantly increased liquid assets.

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

So we are now underwriting criminal scams?...

2 months ago

Glad to see the back of you Steve. You made financial more expensive, not more affordable as you claim, and presided ...

2 months ago

Completely agree Peter. The definition of 'significant change is circumstances relevant to the scope of the advice' is s...

4 months 1 week ago

A Sydney financial adviser has been permanently banned from providing any financial services, with the regulator deriding his “lack of integrity, trustworthiness and prof...

3 weeks 1 day ago

Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, has provided further information about the second tranche of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms....

2 weeks ago

One licensee has lost 27 advisers in the past week, now sitting at zero, according to the latest Wealth Data figures....

3 weeks 1 day ago

TOP PERFORMING FUNDS