‘Very tough’: ANZ boss takes the painful step to rewire the bank

1 week ago 3

ANZ bank boss Nuno Matos was one of the more notable corporate heavyweights who descended on Sydney’s Four Seasons Hotel on Monday night for a high-powered annual dinner held by the Business Council of Australia.

Since he started leading ANZ in May, Matos has largely shunned media interviews as he has pushed through a major overhaul of Australia’s fourth-largest bank, so his attendance at the BCA event drew attention.

Less than 12 hours after the dinner had wrapped up, Matos was dropping bombshell news to the bank’s staff: ANZ would slash 3500 jobs over the next year, and a further 1000 contractors, as part of a sweeping cost-cutting plan.

Later on Tuesday morning, as Matos fronted the media for the first time, it was clear the job cuts are just the beginning, with more changes ahead at the big-four bank.

ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos announced heavy job cuts on Tuesday.

To be fair, Matos has made no secret of his desire for major changes at ANZ and its company culture since he took the reins from former chief executive Shayne Elliott. The 57-year-old career banker, who was born in Portugal and formerly worked at HSBC, has given strong signals to staff that the bank needed to move faster and that he was not shy about change.

This included a push from Matos for staff presentations to be kept to no more than five pages, and staff were also told meetings should have a clear purpose and agenda. The bank has also recently reminded staff they needed to turn up to the office at least 50 per cent of the time to get a bonus, a pre-existing policy.

Tuesday’s announcement of 3500 job cuts, while not unexpected, still cuts deep. It is easily the biggest announcement of job cuts by an Australian bank since National Australia Bank said it would cut up to 6000 over three years, in 2017.

It’s also likely to amp up the anxiety of ANZ staff who have been nervous and unsettled ever since Matos entered the building.

While ANZ did not provide details of exactly where in the bank these cuts will come from, they are likely to focus on its Australian workforce of more than 21,000, and its Melbourne headquarters is likely to be hit hardest.

Matos on Tuesday acknowledged that sackings of this magnitude are always “very tough” but he did not shy away from his position that ANZ needs to change.

He stressed that he’d be halting projects that did not match the bank’s priorities – without specifying which projects – while also talking up the need to move quickly. Speaking at The Australian Financial Review’s Asia Summit, he said ANZ needed a culture that was more focused on performance, which meant one that was “more decisive”.

“I believe that in today’s world, all industries, all businesses, they have to be good at one thing at least: pace. You need to, we need to, embrace the speed at which society is evolving,” he said.

“And it’s uncontrollable. It’s happening. We can’t avoid it. We can decide to be part of it or pay the consequences, right?”

While Matos said the changes were not about profits, the market is viewing his plan in financial terms because ANZ has been a relative laggard. It is the smallest of the big four by market capitalisation, though it has more staff than its rivals National Australia Bank and Westpac. Its shares have underperformed the other three banks in the past 12 months.

Putting a number to the jobs headed out the door at ANZ is one thing but it is still unclear exactly what the Matos-era period of change will entail for ANZ.

Nuno Matos has overseen a cultural overhaul at the bank that has included a restructure of its retail division.

The one thing Matos has made clear since his first day in the job is a keen focus on improving ANZ Plus, its digital banking platform. There is a review under way into the platform, and some analysts have wondered if Matos would be interested in curbing investment into the ambitious digital project.

More details of Matos’ plan to overhaul ANZ and lift its performance against rivals will be revealed when he appears before investors for a strategy day next month.

But having finally given everyone a glimpse of what ANZ’s future is going to look like, expect plenty of noise from the sidelines until Matos takes the stage again.

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