Australian lender ANZ has been retreating from operations across Asia, with one exception. The business in Japan embodies its new Asian structure.
ANZ recently won its securities licence from Japan’s regulator, the Financial Services Agency. The approval allows the Melbourne-based bank to trade bonds in the Japanese domestic market, as news site IFR reports (behind paywall).
The mainstay of ANZ's almost 50 year old business in Japan is helping companies invest in Australia, through its Tokyo and Osaka units. And while the emphasis has been on business ties with China over the past few years, the Australian bank is now reprioritising its commercial relationship with Japan.
Assisting Companies
ANZ's Japanese business unit symbolises what the Australian bank wants to do in the rest of Asia. The focus is now on assisting companies trading in the region via its institutional business.
Retail and wealth banking in Asia are now history for the bank as it shifts its concentration onto the burgeoning trade and capital flows between Asean, north Asia and Australia where the bank feels it has heft.
