He acknowledged that farming was the backbone of the bank's business in this region and that was recognised in the team of 10 working out of Wanganui, servicing that client base. "The farmers are so important to us, not just in this region but nationally."
Mr Lee said what many people overlooked was the importance of primary industry to this district and especially the city of Wanganui.
"Without that farming background you don't have your Imlays, your Tasman Tannings, your Land Meats. You cannot escape the fact Wanganui relies on that farming sector but it simply doesn't get recognised enough.
"And that's even before factoring in the thousands of people who rely directly or indirectly on what comes off those farms."
He said that while they had long-standing clients they were focused on growing their market share. "A lot have come through from the Rural Bank, the National Bank and now with the ANZ, while a lot have been with the ANZ for years. We're the biggest team in town."
Mr Lee said some of the bank's other business was generated beyond the farm gate, in those secondary industries servicing the primary industry and its downstream offshoots in those meat plants and the dairy factories.
Yet, he said, it was unfortunate there was a lot of good things happening in the rural sector that was often overshadowed by the Auckland housing market or the Christchurch rebuild.
He said farmers had had a tough time in the first half of this year with the impact of the drought but there was some "pretty exciting stuff" coming along.
Those hard times demanded the bank was flexible in its business approach.
"We see farming as a generational business over 20, 30 years or more. You know you are going to have tough times but we prepare for it just as the farmers do.
"They should know, like we should know, what their contingency plans are in a time of drought, or when the dairy payout drops or the US dollar impacts on the kiwi," he said.
Mr Lee said a more obvious example of that impact was the PSA disease which had decimated kiwifruit orchards.
"We couldn't pull back from lending. In fact what we did do was bring in our experts who are good at managing through situations just like this. We actually lent more into the sector to rebuild the PSA-resistant strains to help those who had to pull their vines out to help get them through."
He said the drought would have an impact for the next two or three years, especially for Wanganui's hill country farmers.
"But it's not all doom and gloom. They'll get their lambs on the ground and pricing looks as if it's going to be okay this year. There's still capital stock rebuilding that will occur and we'll help with that, just as we did with the kiwifruit."
He said the rise of markets in Asia, especially China and India, was "massive", particularly in terms of its effects on New Zealand's dairy production. He said it had pushed up the dairy payout and it was an effect that was not going to diminish.
"Looking out to 2015-16 and beyond you're looking at continuing growth so there's nothing to suggest Wanganui couldn't support another Open Country plant here."
