ANZ has overhauled its leadership structure in Australia following last year's departure of retail chief Fred Ohlsson, giving two executives joint responsibility for the bank's local financial performance.
Mark Hand has been named Mr Ohlsson's permanent successor as retail chief, and digital banking boss Maile Carnegie is taking on an expanded role as digital and Australia transformation executive. The pair will jointly share responsibility for ANZ's financial performance in Australia, which chief executive Shayne Elliott indicated was a response to the challenges posed by the financial services royal commission. "It was clear that retaining a single governance and accountability structure is no longer suitable given the size and complexity of the challenges facing domestic banking in Australia," Mr Elliot said in a statement. Mr Ohlsson, who was ANZ's NZ boss before becoming Australia group executive in 2016, stepped down on December 29. He assisted Mr Hand throughout January. Ms Carnegie joined ANZ in 2016 after working for Google as managing director in Australia and New Zealand following 20 years with Proctor and Gamble. The structural changes to the executive management team will come into effect from March this year. The changing state of Australia's housing market may be occupying the minds of many property owners, but cooling prices in big cities are not worrying Treasury.
House prices fell by 4.8 per cent nationally in 2018, according to CoreLogic data, and are expected to continue declining this year. But Treasury secretary Philip Gaetjens says as long as prices don't drop steeply, his department isn't stressed. "As long as it’s not a sharp correction, I don’t think it’s a problem," he told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday. “I don’t think from a policy point of view, there’s much concern." Mr Gaetjens said all housing markets go through cycles, with prices in Sydney and Melbourne climbing in recent years amid high demand. That caused some issues for people wanting to buy their first property and regulators monitoring the quality of credit lenders were offering. The Treasury boss said recent price declines reflect efforts by regulators such as the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to improve the quality of credit offered. “We’re looking at results that I think are consistent with the policy objectives of those regulators.” |
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