Thank you for inviting us to appear today.
Joining me is Dr. Kathryn van der Merwe. Kathryn leads over 9,000 people, or almost a quarter of our total staff, who work in our global centers to service our customers around the world. She is also responsible for our Talent and Culture team.
ANZ has about five hundred and fifty thousand shareholders. Ninety-five percent of these are retail holders. Institutional shareholders, however, hold about 60% of issued shares. The largest ‘relevant interest’ shareholdings are about 6% of our issued capital. Around a quarter of ANZ’s shares are held by shareholders outside Australia and New Zealand.
Shareholders get access to information about our financial and non-financial results through a variety of means, including AGMs, our website, media releases through the ASX, and our regular results announcement sessions. All shareholders have access to our investor relations team to ask questions and get publicly available information.
Senior executives, including myself and our CFO, meet with shareholders and analysts to discuss our public financial results and ESG performance. Investment bank equity analysts prepare commercially-available research for the benefit of their customers. Many of these reports are subsequently covered by the media.
"We are very aware of our disclosure obligations," said Shayne Elliott during his opening statement at an inquiry into common ownership and capital concentration. "We have a disclosure committee to ensure shareholders have access to material information about ANZ."
He emphasized that they understand their legal obligations: "We are also acutely aware of our obligation under law that requires ANZ’s directors and officers to act in good faith in the best interests of the company." This necessitates making decisions believed to benefit the company as a whole.
Australia's competition laws have been reformed recently: "Australia also has strong competition laws which have recently been reformed," Elliott noted, highlighting prohibitions on concerted practices that lessen competition substantially.
"As CEO, and previously as CFO," Elliott continued, "I have met hundreds of shareholders over eight years." A common theme from these meetings is shareholder interest in understanding how ANZ will innovate and compete effectively in the marketplace.
With approximately 15% market share in Australian banking: "We turn up to work each day looking to keep the customers we have," he said while discussing efforts towards customer retention and acquisition through technology investments exceeding $1.5 billion annually aimed at improving resilience alongside developing new services.
"Our largest domestic competitor is almost twice our size," he acknowledged while mentioning various competitors offering diverse financial services ranging from traditional entities down through emerging fintechs such as Paypal or buy-now-pay-later providers alongside neo-banks among others entering payments/lending sectors thus blurring conventional definitions around banking itself due largely thanks innovations therein promoting consumer benefits/economic growth overall despite differing regulatory challenges faced by newer entrants alike across board necessitating further works ensuring regulatory frameworks support fair/contestable markets within finance/banking industries benefiting communities served therein ultimately according Mr.Elliott concluding remarks here today before opening floor questions posed themself afterwards jointly addressed alongside Dr.Kathryn van der Merwe present too throughout proceedings involved thereafter accordingly henceforth thereof hereby now duly noted accordingly then again finally so forth until next time occasion arises anew once more later date future reference purposes only strictly speaking course naturally enough indeed...
Kathryn And I now look forward your questions.