ANZ says shift to single IT platform and restructure to cost $220m

Photo / Dean Purcell

ANZ New Zealand says its plans to put the ANZ and National Banks onto one IT platform and restructure management by laying off 45 staff and establishing a regional reporting structure will cost it a total of $220 million.

ANZ's December quarter General Disclosure Statement (GDS), out today, says the combined cost of the two initiatives is estimated at $160 million in operating expense and $60 million in capital expense.

ANZ announced last November that seven years after buying the National Bank from Lloyds TSB in 2003, it was going to shut down the ANZ IT platform and adopt the National Bank's Systematics core banking system across both banking networks by late this year.

And earlier this month ANZ revealed a management restructure to pull together its commercial and rural divisions into one operation, and create four new regional divisions that cover both the ANZ and National branches owned by the group.

ANZ chief executive David Hisco said the restructure would see about 15 management jobs go and up to 30 back office roles would also go. ANZ has about 9,000 staff in total.

Mike Smith, ANZ's group chief executive, told Australian-based analysts last week that, combined, the IT move and management changes meant ANZ faced a one-off charge of about A$120 million (NZ$162 million) in the first-half of its financial year.

Smith said the changes were being implemented as ANZ's New Zealand operations strove to "significantly improve operational efficiency" and "leverage the group's super regional strategy" which targets growth in Asia.

"New Zealand is a critical part of our super regional strategy given our view on the increasing importance of agriculture to Asia's growing urban population," Smith said then.

Meanwhile, the GDS also shows ANZ's profit after tax up $7 million, or 3 per cent, in the three months to December to $260 million from $253 million in the same period of 2009. The bank's provision for credit impairment fell to $34 million from $152 million.

Total assets fell to $124.5 billion at December 31 from $127 billion at September 30. Gross loans and advances dropped by $257 million to $97 billion over the same period with term deposits up by $1.4 billion to $36.1 billion.


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