ANZ Banking Group is seeking acquisition opportunities. These could be from the Asia Pacific region because of global market volatilities.
“We should never waste a crisis,” Michael R.P. Smith told reporters at a media event to announce the launch of its operations in India.
“A number of banks in Europe and possibly the (United) States are going to have to sell assets to improve their capital base,” he said. “They will have to sell some of the family silver.”
Melbourne-based ANZ is looking to expand in Asia at a time when the Australian economy is starting to show signs of strain and its banks are contending with subdued credit growth at home.
It aims to achieve 25%-30% of its group income from the Asia Pacific region by 2017. The confidence emanates from the fact that ANZ has a strong balance sheet and is comfortable on liquidity unlike European banks which are starved of capital for growth.
“We actually emerged from the (2008) crisis with a much stronger balance sheet and I would like to do the same thing again,” Smith said.
Smith asked for a “reevaluation” of the Basel-III norms, the global standards for banking regulation, being “imposed” by the U.S. and Northern Europe.
Countries like India, China, Australia and Canada, which have strong banking systems, “need to ally themselves and push back on some of this (Basel-III) stuff because what is appropriate for France or Germany or the U.K. or the U.S. is not necessary relevant to us,” he said.
In India, the bank aims to have a three-stage roll out in about four years. It will start with institutional and corporate banking, supply chain commercial banking in the second stage and wealth and affluent retail in the next round.
Mumbai, September 14, 2011 (Dow Jones)
