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The upcoming merger has been the talk of the town since it was approved by the Treasurer in June. More recently, in early July, the merger was given a date following the proclamation of Queensland legislation.
The completion of ANZ’s acquisition of Suncorp is set for today (31 July), with an additional 3,000 employees and 1.2 million customers coming into the ANZ fold from tomorrow (1 August).
Speaking on the inaugural Broker Daily Uncut episode, Natalie Smith, general manager of retail broking at ANZ said: “We’ll continue to operate as two independent brands come 1 August and we’ll just be making sure that we welcome each other but continue to operate our businesses as we do today.”
This will surely be welcome news to those worried that Suncorp would be folded into ANZ’s operations. Instead, the merger is reminiscent of the CBA-Bankwest acquisition back in 2008. However, since then Bankwest has become a digital-only bank, which could mean change isn’t out of the picture for ANZ and Suncorp customers.
However, for the time being, it’s apparently business as usual and according to Smith, regardless of the changes, brokers will continue to be supported: "We understand that for ANZ to be successful we need to partner really well with brokers."
“1 August we’ll welcome Suncorp into the ANZ family and we’re looking forward to it. We’re really complimentary brands in that ANZ, [has a] very strong broking flow versus proprietary and ANZ compared to our peers,” said Smith.
“So, 65 ‘ish’ per cent of our flow comes through third-party channels in retail for brokers in ANZ and then in Suncorp, it’s a bit higher than that. So, both very strong third-party relationships. It’s nice to have complementary businesses in that space.”
The significant changes for ANZ come off the back of a challenging period. Investments like the Suncorp merger are in the spirit of growth and stability.
“When I joined two and a half years ago, we came out of a period of some challenges. That’s not news to anyone. And when I joined, I was at a really pivotal point where the bank had made some investment to really stabilise,” said Smith.
“We had put on some resources and to stabilise, particularly in our assessment space. In the last two and a half years, we’ve been really deliberate around a few things. One is really listening to our brokers. So, we’ve not only been using things like Broker Pulse and we look at that religiously and really understand what the brokers share, but also, we’ve done our own internal surveys for brokers who actively use ANZ to understand what’s important to them, to prioritise the right areas of focus for us.”
Smith said that the bank has gravitated towards “more of a relationship model” to help build connections and move away from what she describes as a “pooled approach”.
“We saw a real improvement in terms of the way brokers were able to get a smaller pool of assessors who got to know them or their business or their applications. And it did build some understanding or improvement in terms of speed and consistency,” she said.
“We saw a one-touch approvals increase as a result of that change. Now that was never one and done. That’s the one thing we’ll always say in ANZ, it’s never one and done, it’s the foundation. And so, we’ve got a list of other activities that we’re working on jointly with our assessment team in terms of how we consistently improve that experience and we’ll just continue to work through those.
“Another example is we then reflected on our brokers and the way they’re engaging with ANZ. And then we restructured our frontline teams. So, we looked at assessment, then the next part was looking at our frontline teams and we invested 11 roles into our frontline teams and said we haven’t got it right. And so, we stopped, took pause, really thought about the types of roles we needed in market and where did we best need those roles to serve our brokers in the best way. And that has been rolled out now probably nine months, that new structure, and it’s really starting to find its feet.”
Continuing to develop these relationships is key, said Smith, and ANZ constantly listening and engaging the broker channel is paramount.
"ANZ has a very long history in broker. We were one of the early major lenders who really became a real supporter of the industry and I don't see that changing. ANZ Broker is integral to our distribution strategy. It won't change as part of our transformation agenda," added Smith.
[Related: What the ANZ-Suncorp merger means for brokers and borrowers]
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Natalie Smith, click below:
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