Can you imagine the ignominy? According to a rumour circulating among Hong Kong bankers, the Asian business of ANZ Banking Group had shrunk so much it was being run through the Australian bank’s New Zealand unit.
For a bank with ambitions to challenge the region’s big three in wholesale banking — HSBC, Citigroup and Standard Chartered — that would have been an embarrassing retreat. In reality it turned out that the New Zealand connection extended only to the nationality of ANZ’s new chief executive, Shayne Elliott, and the location of its tiny regional retail operations, not its wholesale business.
Another high-profile pullback from Asia would have burnished the region’s reputation as a deathtrap for ambitious overseas banks. Barclays sounded the retreat this year, slashing its investment banking operations. Before that it was Royal Bank of Scotland, which sold much of its corporate business to ANZ.