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The story
19th century
The Bank of Australasia was founded in London in 1835. Its first branch was opened in Sydney on 14 December 1835. It combined with the Cornwall Bank, which was formed in Launceston, Van Diemens Land in 1828. In 1837, Union Bank of Australia was established in London by a group of people including banker George Fife Angas. The English, Scottish & Australian Bank (ES&A) was established in London in 1852, and opened its first Australian branch in Sydney in 1853. The ES&A bank took over the Commercial Bank of Tasmania and the London Bank of Australia in 1921 and the Royal Bank of Australia in 1927.
20th century
In 1951, the Bank of Australasia merged with Union Bank of Australia to form the Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ Bank). In 1963, the first computer systems established in new data processing centre in Melbourne. In 1966, ANZ began operations in Honiara, Solomon Islands. In 1968, ANZ opened an office in New York, US. In 1969, ANZ established a representative office in Tokyo, Japan.
On 1 October 1970, ANZ merged with the English, Scottish & Australian Bank to form the present organisation, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. That same year, the bank began operating in Vanuatu. In 1976, ANZ (PNG) was established. In 1977, ANZ transferred its incorporation from the UK to Australia. In 1979, ANZ acquired the Bank of Adelaide.
In 1980, the Singapore and New York representative offices upgraded to branch status. In 1984, ANZ purchased Grindlays Bank. In 1985, ANZ acquired Barclays' operations in Fiji and Vanuatu. That same year, the bank received a full commercial banking licence and opened a branch in Frankfurt, Germany, and announced ANZ Singapore. In 1988, ANZ opened branches in Rarotonga, Cook Islands and Paris, France. In 1989, ANZ purchased PostBank from New Zealand Government.
During the 1990s, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group acquired several banks. In 1990, this included National Mutual Royal Bank in March and the Town & Country Building Society in Western Australia in July. That same year, ANZ purchased Lloyd Bank's operations in Papua New Guinea and the Bank of New Zealand's operations in Fiji.
In 1993, ANZ established new headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. They also opened new branches in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Shanghai, China, and began a joint venture with PT Panin Bank in Indonesia. That year they also began operating in Tonga and sold their Canadian operations acquired via the purchase of Grindlays Bank in 1984 to HSBC Bank Canada.
Throughout the late 1990s, ANZ opened new branches in several locations, including Manila, Philippines, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In 1997, John McFarlane was appointed chief executive officer and the bank opened its Beijing branch. In 1999, ANZ formed a strategic alliance with E*Trade Australia for online share trading and purchased Amerika Samoa Bank.
21st century
In 2000, ANZ sold its Grindlays businesses in the Middle East and South Asia, and associated Grindlays Private Banking business to Standard Chartered. In 2001, ANZ opened branches in Timor Leste and began offering credit card services in Hong Kong. In 2002, ANZ formed a joint venture with ING Group for wealth management and life insurance business in Australia and New Zealand. The next year, ANZ acquired the National Bank of New Zealand.
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In 2005, ANZ established the ANZ Royal Bank in Cambodia, a joint venture with the Cambodian-based Royal Group company. In 2006, ANZ announced a new world headquarters in the Melbourne Docklands and invested in the Bank of Tianjin, China. In 2007, ANZ acquired E*Trade Australia and Citizen Securities Bank in Guam. Also in 2007, Mike Smith, formerly of HSBC, became CEO after the retirement of John McFarlane in October and the company took over the naming rights sponsorship for Sydney's Stadium Australia.
In August 2009, ANZ purchased the Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) operations in six Asian countries for $550 million. In September the company announced it would buy out ING Group's 51% stake of the joint venture, giving ANZ 100% control of ING Australia. In November, ANZ opened their new headquarters in Melbourne.
In 2010, ANZ acquired the RBS' interests in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia. That year ANZ also expanded its stake in the Bank of Tianjin. In November, ING Australia was renamed OnePath.
In 2012, ANZ announced the retirement of the National Bank brand in New Zealand. In 2013, ANZ became the first bank to reopen in the Christchurch CBD following the 2011 earthquakes.
In 2016, Shayne Elliott became CEO. In April ANZ partnered with Apple to bring Apple Pay to its customers. In 2017, ANZ acquired REALas property price predictor start-up.
In 2018, the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry heard that ANZ had failed to accurately verify the living expenses of home loan customers referred to the bank by mortgage brokers, believing that this was the responsibility of the brokers, in spite of a conflict of interest in doing so; and that, due to processing issues, it had charged nearly 500,000 home loan customers the incorrect interest rate for more than ten years, leading the bank to overcharge customers by approximately $90 million.
Bloomberg Intelligence estimated in May 2020 that ANZ's surplus capital was A$3.4 billion (US$2.4 billion), with ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott telling Bloomberg that the bank was "sitting on" the excess while it considered market trends.
In February 2020, the Federal Court of Australia fined ANZ AUD10 million for charging customers fees between 2003 and 2015 that it was not entitled to, equating to profits of around AUD3.1 million. The regulator said around 69,000 customers had been affected. For the year ending September 2020, ANZ posted a yearly profit of A$3.58 billion (US$2.53 billion), a decline of 40% from the A$6 billion in 2019, with the bank attributing the drop to the COVID-19 pandemic and "full year credit impairment charges" of A$2.74 billion as a result.
After tensions between China and Australia resulted in China imposing trade curbs on imports from Australia in October 2020, the CEO of ANZ stated to CNBC that the company was also "looking for opportunities" in other Asian countries beyond China as well. It was reported in March 2021 that ANZ was planning to cut its workforce in China by half, and shift the positions elsewhere. In November 2021, Reuters reported that ANZ was being sued by a law firm in a class action lawsuit for unfair contract terms, after ANZ allegedly charged interest on customer purchases that had been repaid on time. The lawsuit focused on charges levied prior to January 2019, when an Australian law outlawing charging retrospective interest had been implemented. In December 2021, ANZ pled guilty in a case filed by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission to breaching its obligations as a financial services and credit licensee provider, and not fully disbursing benefits to 500,000 customers. An A$25 million penalty was proposed.
ANZ said it was combining its digital division and its Australian retail business in February 2022. In March 2022, ANZ launched a digital bank called ANZ Plus. In April 2022, ANZ was involved in a joint venture with Scentre Group, Westpac, IBM and the Commonwealth Bank named Lygon, a blockchain startup. In July 2022, ANZ agreed to terms with Suncorp to purchase Suncorp Bank for $5 billion. However, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) blocked the deal in August 2023. On 20 February 2024, the Australian Competition Tribunal overturned the decision by the ACCC, paving the way for ANZ to acquire Suncorp Bank.
In 2023, ANZ announced a strategic investment in Australian property media and technology company View Media Group (VMG).
In March 2025, the Australian government provided ANZ with a A$2 billion loan guarantee for 10 years to ensure the bank's maintenance of its Pacific branch network to counter China's growing regional influence. As part of the agreement, ANZ would also invest A$50 million to support its services and expand digital banking in the Pacific region.
From Wikipedia’s article on ANZ (bank), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4