ANZ’s purchase of the banking arm of Suncorp Group for A$4.9 billion reminds us that Australian banking is, in essence, a simple game: align yourself to the national love of property and watch the money flood in.
From time to time, a Big Four Australian bank will flirt with something daring such as, say, a strategy in cross-border institutional business. But generally, whatever innovation these ideas bring is drowned out by the moaning of analysts and investors that banks should keep it fastidiously, tediously simple.
ANZ is, by most metrics, the smallest of Australia’s Big Four, behind Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac and National Australia Bank.
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