Antonia Watson, chief executive of ANZ Bank New Zealand. 17 February 2020 New Zealand Herald photograph by Michael Craig
Antonia Watson, chief executive of ANZ Bank New Zealand. 17 February 2020 New Zealand Herald photograph by Michael Craig
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While she concedes banks are under some short-term pressure on customer demand, ANZ chief executive Antonia Watsonhas reassured that the three most important parts of the business are extremely strong.
The first of the three big issues was capital, she said.
"Bank capital in New Zealand has increased significantly since the global financial crisis," Watson said.
Prior to the pandemic both the Australian and New Zealand central banks had introduced new rules requiring banks to hold more capital.
Those rules have been scrapped for now but the commercial banks had already moved close to the new levels in anticipation of the change.
"We were on the path to increase it even further. That's all good capital saved rainy day. And the rainy day is probably here," Watson said. "The RBNZ has acknowledged that with some of the measures they've put in place."
The banking system is awash with cash and there is no problem with availability of cash, she said.
"So we are liquid we can give people back their money if they want it," she said. "[Although] I'd certainly tell people their money is safer in the bank."
The third big issue was the availability of funding.
"I think with the core funding ratios that we've had since 2010, post-GFC we're in a really good position to start with."
The core funding ratio is a comparison between the amount of bank funds that are stable and can be assumed to stay in place for at least one year (core funding) and lending that needs to be funded on an ongoing basis.
The Reserve Bank describes that as more "sticky" funding, such as long-term wholesale debt with maturities of more than one year, or retail deposits.
Since 2013 banks have been required to hold core funding ratios of 75 per cent.
New Zealand banks also shifted their structure after the GFC to rely a lot less on international funding and a lot more on domestic funding.
"On top of that the Reserve Bank has committed to make funding available so we can continue to lend to customers," Watson said.
On Monday the Reserve Bank said it would inject up to $30 billion - the cash equivalent of one tenth of New Zealand's annual GDP - into the economy to keep interest rates low and financial markets stable.
As well as the big banking system challenges the bank had been working through a huge shift in the way it worked and in customer demand, Watson said.
ANZ was experiencing about 30 to 40 per cent more traffic through its call centres, Watson said.
But that varied dramatically - with times where there were 400 per cent more calls than usual to KiwiSaver consultants, for example.
"So we are moving people around as much as we can in order to meet the flow."
She urged customers to be patient and check the website first, as there was a Covid-19 page which could answer many questions.
"You will be waiting longer than usual and I really apologise for that but we've also got to make sure our staff stay safe."
There had been an increase in some over-65 customers looking to withdraw from KiwiSaver, she said.
There was also a increase in people switching between funds, although not huge numbers in the context of ANZ's 600,000 KiwiSaver customers.
"In the low thousands," she said. "And the shame of that is that people are locking in losses on growth funds by switching to conservative. ...I know its really hard when you see that balance go down but actually, inevitably markets recover."
There was demand building from people and businesses wanting to talk about six-month mortgage holidays.
"We 're actually not going to be ready to do those until Monday," she said. "We're just in the process of sorting out the final regulatory pieces we need in order to do that."
In terms of customer service Watson said she was hopeful things would work there way back to a kind of "new-normal".
"We'll have all our customer packages sorted...and people wil be steady and understand what hey need to do in this world where we are all in self-isolation."
"So there is a lot of work going on at the moment like to think is, give us a week or so and we'll be out the other side and we'll be ready to think about how we help with the recovery out the other end."
