turn around its mortgage book performance, having admitted to significantly underestimating the market growth. “Obviously that’s been a big question for your board and management throughout the last year,” Chairman Paul O’Sullivan told a virtual AGM. “We significantly underestimated the growth in market demand – 30 per cent of the ANZ Australian customer base in the mortgage book had a pricing event this year. We got it wrong – although we expanded capacity, we didn’t expand it enough, and we lost market share.”
When inquired if ANZ was ceding market share and market capitalisation to Macquarie, as a result of its significantly low turnaround time, the chairman noted that the bank was processing more complex applications from small business owners. Sharing his views on the matter, Chief executive Shayne Elliott said: “ANZ is a little bit different to many of our peers. About a third of our home loans come through from small business operators”, which involves a more complex approval process that took more time, according to Elliott.
In the matter of the firm’s capital management programme, O’Sullivan noted that it is “prudent” to maintain an unquestionably strong capital ratio, particularly given the uncertainties in the economic outlook. “We’ll be looking to have a very balanced approach in terms of how we treat our capital,” he said. “We are one of the most strongly capitalised banks in the world, with an APRA Common Equity Tier One capital ratio of 12.3 per cent at the end of our financial year. To put this in a broader perspective, this is $6 billion above APRA’s ‘unquestionably strong’ measure.”
