ANZ plans to grow the number of staff writing home loans.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) CEO Nuno Matos has outlined plans to cut the major’s cost base, while expanding mortgage and business lending.
In an update to investors, Matos said ANZ would “materially invest in and train our own mortgage sales force”, with plans to add 50 per cent more mortgage lenders inside its branches.
The changes will likely grow returns from ANZ’s proprietary lending arm and could reduce reliance on mortgage brokers.
ANZ also plans to increase the number of commercial and private bankers by almost 50 per cent, with a new Commercial Bankers Academy to help develop talent.
The bank detailed five immediate priorities, including embedding its new leadership team, accelerating the integration of Suncorp Bank, delivering ANZ Plus to all retail and small-business customers, simplifying operations by reducing duplication, and ending initiatives misaligned with its strategic direction.
ANZ noted that changes would deliver $800 million in gross cost savings in 2026.
The new CEO detailed plans to fully integrate Suncorp Bank into the wider ANZ group by 30 June 2027, ending the subsidiary brand’s use and migrating all Suncorp customers over by that date.
ANZ chief financial officer Farhan Faruqui said the changes to Suncorp Bank would deliver synergies of $500 million.
Included as part of an “ANZ 2030 Strategy” update, the major highlighted a stronger focus on organisational simplification through the divestment of non-core assets and improving efficiency.
It outlined targets to “sustainably improve our financial performance” by delivering higher-return growth.
ANZ also revealed ambitions to make ANZ Plus a digital front end for customers. The change would see 8 million customers using the platform in Australia.
“Today is an exciting day in the 197-year history of ANZ,” Matos commented.
“Under these changes we will unlock our potential to win the preference of customers, shareholders and the community.
“Under our new strategy, customers are at the centre of everything we do – whether it’s improving their experiences, offering them leading technologies and platforms, or keeping them safe.
“Our first focus is to get back to basics and deliver our immediate priorities, while our four strategic pillars will then accelerate our revenue growth and see all four divisions perform to their full potential.
“Our Institutional and New Zealand businesses have performed strongly, but we see significant opportunities in our Australia Retail and Commercial divisions to improve our customers’ experiences and deliver growth.
“Our immediate priorities, combined with these areas of strategic focus, will drive opportunities across the bank, but particularly in these two key Australian divisions. Our Australia Retail division will be significantly simpler, with one team, one brand, one channel and one technology system, as we accelerate both the delivery of ANZ Plus front-end and integrating Suncorp Bank.
“Key to implementing our strategy will be our three key enablers: our culture, our people and our technology. Our people will deliver our strategy, and we must focus on a culture of customers, performance and talent, while also making sure we have the right – simplified – technology in place.”
Commenting on investment plans, Faruqui added: “We’re going to try and maintain our investment spending to a rough envelope of $1.5 billion per year. And that would come through prioritisation of investment spend aligned to our strategy and the phase of the strategy that we’re in, and it will be driven by both prioritisation, but also improving productivity in technology.”
Faruqui also noted plans to cut costs.
“However, we’re also going to set ourselves very clear targets because we have to commit to our shareholders what we are going to deliver to them and to our customers over the course of the next 3 to 5 years,” Faruqui said.
“So we’re setting ourselves three important targets, a target for cost, and that’s a cost to income target of being in the mid 40’s per cent cost to income by 2028 and sustaining that through to the end of FY30.”
Wave of change at ANZ
The latest strategy update comes amid a period of change at ANZ.
The banking group made headlines last month when mainstream media reported that the group would be pulling Suncorp Bank products from market next year, with the brand itself targeted to be phased out by the end of 2026.
The Adviser reached out to ANZ and Suncorp to verify these rumours and was told that the reports were incorrect.
The statement from ANZ said: “A review of our Suncorp Bank integration plans remains underway, and ANZ has made no decisions regarding the future state of Suncorp Bank.”
The rumours of Suncorp Bank’s mothballing came just days after ANZ announced it would be reducing its headcount by around 3,500 employees as part of major reforms to simplify the bank.
[Related: Major bank welcomes new senior leaders]
