ANZ gets conditional approval to take over National Bank

12.00pm

The Reserve Bank today gave conditional approval to ANZ Bank's takeover of National Bank.

The central bank has insisted on a local governance structure that gives primacy to local operations and that that is backed up with stand-alone New Zealand-based technical and management operations.

"The Reserve Bank has agreed to the ANZ and the National Bank merging to form a single bank, which will be known as ANZ National Bank Ltd," the RB said in a statement.

In October, the RB agreed to ANZ buying the National Bank, but at that stage the central bank required that the two banks remain separate legal entities.

Deputy governor Adrian Orr said approval depended on the new bank operating a governance structure where the primary duty of the New Zealand board of directors and senior management was to the New Zealand bank.

"Also, the new bank must have unambiguous access to the technical and management capacity necessary to stay in business if any of its major outsourced service providers, including its Australian owner, fails to deliver.

"The new bank's management has undertaken that by December 31, 2005 they will have facilities in place so they can operate stand alone if required," Mr Orr said.

The governance requirements take effect immediately.

- NZPA