ANZ battles past divestments with solid half

ANZ/Shayne-Elliott/policy/regulation/

1 May 2019
| By Mike |
image
image
expand image

ANZ’s decision to exit its wealth management and insurance businesses together with a tougher housing market has weighed on its half-year result, with the company reporting a five per cent decline in statutory profit after tax of $3.17 million.

The company maintained a fully franked dividend of 80 cents per share.

Commenting on the result, ANZ chief executive, Shayne Elliott noted that home loan demand in Australia had slowed significantly and the impact of the decision to “step back from certain segments”.

“Home loan demand in Australia slowed significantly and this continued during the half,” he said. “While our decision to step back from certain segments compounded this impact, being more risk adverse in the current environment is prudent.”

“However, we do accept we could have done a better job implementing our new risk settings and are taking steps to improve processes.”

The banking group’s half-year results also pointed to the continuing impact of client remediation, noting that it had increased the dedicated remediation team by more than 50 per cent to improve the speed with which customers are refunded.

Commenting on the outlook for the bank, Elliott said he believed retail banking in Australia would remain under pressure for the foreseeable future with subdued credit growth, intense competition and increased compliance costs impacting earnings.

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?...

1 month 3 weeks 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 ago

Entireti has unveiled the new name for the AMP financial advice businesses that it acquired last year....

4 weeks 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...

2 weeks 6 days ago

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

1 week 5 days ago

TOP PERFORMING FUNDS