ANZ, Albanese, and ASEAN
As the Albanese government pushes for closer business ties with Southeast Asia, there are lessons to be learned from Australian banks' efforts to expand in the region.
One of the big overarching themes from the ASEAN special summit in Melbourne this week has been Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s desire to strengthen Australia’s weak economic ties with Southeast Asia. But today, over in Docklands, just a few hundred metres away from where the summit took place, one of our biggest companies took the exact opposite approach with a divestment in the region.
ANZ’s decision to sell down its stake in Malaysian bank AmBank continues the big four lender’s withdrawal from retail banking in Asia, a shift that began when Shayne Elliott took over from Mike Smith and started to dismantle Smith’s “super regional” strategy.
It’s a timely illustration of the complexity for Australian companies in expanding into the booming economies to our immediate north, which are relatively close geographically but culturally and practically very different to the domestic market.
ANZ’s retreat from retail banking in Southeast Asia is hardly unique. ANZ itself has been in and out of major acquisitions and investments in Asia over the last three decades — notably the Grindlays Bank network sold by Smith’s predecessor John McFarlane, which spanned Asia, the subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa.
