ANZ invests in long-term loyalty

By KEVIN TAYLOR

ANZ is launching new, fee-free bank accounts aimed at teenagers as it continues its product overhaul.

The bank concedes the teen market will not be profitable, but it hopes to retain their business as they move into the workforce and age.

ANZ Equip consists of transaction and savings accounts and a money card design the bank's marketing staff hope will be attractive to teenagers.

The bank cited research showing the average deposit balance of 15-17-year-olds was about $1400. Fifty-five per cent had less than $500 and 22 per cent had between $500 and $4999.

The accounts, available to 11-18-year-olds who are at school or not in full-time work, do not attract monthly administration or transaction fees.

The bank claimed the savings account offered the highest interest compared with the rates the other four big banks offered on savings accounts.

Natalie Sutherland, ANZ head of consumer and rural markets, conceded the teenager market would not be profitable but said it was a long-term strategy.

Banks had generally looked at the youth market as hard work and unprofitable, and tended to label them as not particularly loyal.

"We wanted to take a look at the market quite differently," she said.

ANZ used Takapuna Grammar students to help design the product. They came up with the name Equip.

The new money card design is of darkened silhouettes of a group of teenagers in an urban area.

Sutherland said the bank wanted to ensure teenagers were comfortable when they pulled the money card out to use, and create "peer envy".

"This is for us quite innovative. We are the only bank to target this market in the way that we have."

She said ANZ was not trying to be "cool", because banks were not "cool".

But ANZ was trying to say it understood some of the issues teenagers faced and wanted to provide the product they wanted.

Sutherland denied the package was another response to state-owned Kiwibank, which opened in February.

"It's all about getting a proposition out there that is attractive, and hence those customers will stick with us in the long term."