No Wonder they pay Mike Smith the big bucks. Check out some of these Clanger quotes, what a knuckle head. Glad i closed my ANZ accounts earlier this year. Good Luck to those affected by these Morons and Theives. Cheers BM
ANZ CEO admits Opes has hurt the brand
ANZ banking Group Ltd's chief Mike Smith admitted the bank's involvement with collapsed margin lender Opes Prime had damaged its brand.
"The reputational issue is what it's all about," Mr Smith said.
"In terms of the actual size of the problem, it's very small, of course. But in terms of reputation it is huge."
ANZ is Opes Prime's biggest secured creditor.
Opes owed the bank $650 million, and the bank began selling a pool of shares originally from Opes clients to recover its money.
But the bank is now involved in Federal Court battle - effectively a test case - over whether it had the right to claim ownership of the shares.
"We are dealing with a bunch of sophisticated day traders who were clients of this organisation," Mr Smith said.
"The position is very unpleasant and I have to say I'm somewhat pissed off about the whole thing."
"The question to ask is, 'Should ANZ have been in this kind of business?' Quite clearly not."
Mr Smith said he was committed to making public a review he is leading into the bank's involvement in securities lending.
"I am absolutely determined to see if there were any breaches of our processes or our standards," he said.
"I will be taking the very strongest action. I am just not prepared to have anything but the very highest standards of behaviour and performance at ANZ."
Four ANZ staff have already been suspended over the Opes issue.
But the decision to conduct the review did not necessarily mean ANZ would shut down its securities lending business, Mr Smith said.
Australia's fourth largest bank posted a seven per cent fall in first half profit, after booking large writedowns in bad debts.
Net profit was $1.963 billion for the half year to March 31, down from $2.102 billion in the corresponding period last financial year.
Cash profit - its preferred measure of profitability as it strips out non-core and one-off items - fell 14 per cent to $1.674 billion, from $1.936 billion.
The bottom line result was in line with analysts' expectations of a figure around $1.9 billion and the writedowns were already flagged.
