• John Campbell states that ANZ’s remains strongly focused on the financial institution and its clients
• ANZ aims to the “best bank” in Asia Pacific for trade and capital flows
• Campbell also opined that, by joining 120 banks, opting into and complying to the genuine progress indicator (GPI), ANZ is looking to do more, while already receiving payments on the GPI platform 

Here is the transcript:

John Campbell: For us, obviously, having our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, very important and those are full service markets, so we can provide full set of offering. Asia, we now operate as a bank in 34 different markets. The majority of those being in Asia and the Pacific. And as you well know, each market with its own nuances and different things that we need to think our way through. And we have taken the philosophy to understand each of those markets individually; and understand what is required, most importantly, from the client perspective. And so, we're working our way through trying to build the capability, capacity, have people on ground in all of our key markets, which I'll have to happily talk through you in a second. But really, make sure that we understand the market, the client, the needs. And then we build our capability around that. There are a couple of areas in the Asia Pacific that where ANZ is particularly strong. Those two are the Mekong markets: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar where we have really strong presence. And we can offer our clients something a bit different than some of the other foreign banks. And interesting for us also in the Pacific. ANZ is the largest bank in the Pacific and again provides some coverage there for our clients on cash trade, clearing space that is unique. And something where we spend on a lot of money and effort to make sure that we can deliver that solution.

Correct. So, for ANZ, the focus is really has been to step back and say "what is that we are really good at?" And overtime we've built, in some of the markets in Asia's, retail presence, our decision more to say to look those markets as the domestic banks have become really good at what they do. The retail market was one that we've decided to step away from in Asia. But our focus on the institution, and the wealth is correct. But the best way we have start being strong, and we're we want to continue on focusing is in the institution and the FI clients. So, that actually has not changed at all. Our focus remains very strong and in particular Australian, New Zealand countries that heavily reliable on both import and export. We have lots of foreign entrance corporates coming into the Australian and New Zealand markets. Also, a lot of our own home-grown companies that move outwards. So, our philosophy is to say how can we really then help those customers as they move in and out of the markets. And strategically, our aim is to be the best bank in the region for trade and capital flows. Now, that fits very nicely with the transaction banking business that is what we do. So, that linkeage to Asia is absolutely part of our DNA, it's part of our structure. And in something that we don't intend to change. We, in fact, just intend to grow and be stronger in those relationships with those core clients.

It's a fabulously exciting time, isn't it? I mean, I think the whole world of payments, cross-border and correspondent banking is changing rapidly. I mean, you've seen the development surround something like Swift-GPI where ANZ was one of the, sort of, the founding members to get the Swift-GPI initiative on the go. Because we, we all realise I think as banks, that we have to do better on the things you've mentioned on pricing transparencies, speed, and quite frankly overall, the customers' experience. So, I think we have to improve the overall customer experience, hence, we, as an organisation spending a lot of time and effort, and investing in our platforms to deliver that customer experience, which clients are getting from us. So, yes, an active participant in the GPI initiative, as I said, we’re one of the founding members. They also know using a lot of new technology to again, with the aim, the way ANZ philosophically thinks about that this is "If there's a problem to be solved, or there's an opportunity to be gained, that's we're we get involved.” We also like partnership approach; we don't have all the answers and we don't intend to have them all. Hence, we like to pull in our partners and those with the real skills and say how do we work together and how do we make it happen. So, it's very much a, trying to solve a problem, leveraging partnerships, but ultimately with the aim of delivering a better customer experience. So, one of the point I will just quickly touch on is, you asked about our platforms. Of course, one of the things that customers asked for is to say that they want a consistent experience. So, we are on our cash management platform, this called the “transactive platform”. We are now working through a process to standardised that across all the markets that we serve. So that if you're a customer, regardless of where you sit or where you're based, you will have that single very consistent, very uniform experience. So, that is something we work our way through into 2018 and hopefully by the end of that year, have a really consistent platform across all our markets.

The role of traditional correspondent banks is definitely being challenged. And we, again are quite confused of that model because what you've found is that the disruptors, the aggregators those who have been able to be a little bit more nimble, and again focusing on speed, agility, transparency have really, I think, encouraged a more traditional players like ourselves to sort of say what we have to do better, what we have to do things a little bit different. That has, of course, now started a shift in the correspondent banking model. We, I think as many other banks, have decided to focus on fewer, fewer relationships in the correspondent banking model but the relationships we have are much deeper. So, we choose our partners, we choose, hopefully, choose them well. And then with those ones, we work closely, we build a relationship but they are much deeper and stronger relationships. But, definitely fewer partners, but hopefully they become genuine, true partners to help you solve the problems. Quite, a rapidly evolving, a revolving market but one that's very exciting.

I mean, SWIFT has a fabulous position in the market. Given the standards that they have created and the reach that they have. So, they must be a key player in that market and I think, as you've said, addressing transparency, speed, cost fees, etc. They have really an important role to play. We think GPI is the beginning, the beginning of the process. I mean, they are up to 120 banks that have opted into GPI. Where we're complying to, we're already receiving payments on the GPI platform. So, we're really excited by... I will say that this is the beginning. There's a lot more we need to do, there's a lot more value add we can provide. And again, we're really excited that SWIFT is stepping up and playing that important role that they do. So, really big proponent, getting other correspondent banks to join but I think watch the space. There is more to come.

Everyone is either, we found, we are starting to play a really important role. They have reach into customer basis that out of the traditional banking market. They've also, quite frankly, taken a lot of customers from the traditional markets. So, most FIs at this point have to make up their mind philosophically do they or don't they want to work with the aggregators. They, by the way, of course, regulated slightly different than we are so it's an interesting dynamic at the moment where you've got to work with your risk colleagues, your product colleagues, your relationship colleagues and sort of say, this specific segment, how will we deal with them, how will we work with them. But it would be strange of me to sort of say, that we have a partnership approach and then saying that we don't want to work with the aggregators. So, that is not our approach. We selectively do want to work with the aggregators. We think that they play an extremely important part of financial inclusion, providing good services to clients, and the ones that we think we can get comfortable with that I see some value dealing with us; those are the ones we love to work with.