ANZ is increasing its Pacific presence, unlike other Australian banks that are pulling out of the Pacific. This is a move to advance Australia’s interests in the region and help Pacific nations secure their economic future.

ANZ Group chief executive officer Shayne Elliot said the bank is working with the Australian government and has nothing to do with geopolitics or the presence of China’s bank in the region.

“There are real changes around regulation. That means correspondent banking is now more difficult, more expensive, more complicated and riskier. But, you know, the easy thing is to run away from that problem,” said Mr Elliot.

“Let's be honest, ANZ is huge and we could just shut somewhere tomorrow and our shareholders wouldn't even notice, but that would be wrong. We are not going to do that. We are not about running away from problems where our job is to find a solution.”

The problems around corresponding banking are real. The bank feels they can do better in the region by helping the Pacific.

The bank partnered the Australian government to make it easier to work with other government ts in the region.

“We're not asking for a subsidy. We're not asking for money. We've got money. That's not an issue. But there is some assistance they can give us in making it easier for us to comply with the regulation, to do the right thing by the people of Samoa, but also enable us not just to stand still and survive in places like Samoa, but grow,” said Mr Elliot.

Over the past decade, financial institutions have dropped 60 per cent of their correspondent banking relationships, double the global average. For every five banks exiting the Pacific, four are Western providing services in US dollars. ANZ hopes to step in and provide this service where the Pacific can make transactions with other banks in other countries.

“It is very important to the Pacific, that access to the payment network is absolutely critical to the lifelong economy, and we're really proud that we can provide that it's more than just presence on the ground that payment piece is so important to the economy,” said Mr Elliot.

ANZ’s decision for the Pacific move was headed by Mr Elliot himself and this has been in talks for over a decade.

“I'm the one who's done the transaction with the Australian Government. It was not driven by anything to do with other countries. I have been talking to the Australian Government about these challenges for 10 years,” he said.

“It's to do with the fundamentals of how we maintain an important service in the Pacific that is important not just to the people of the Pacific. It's important to Australia and New Zealand. We all live in the same neighbourhood. We're all neighbours. We live here.

“We all want a safe and prosperous region, including with China. It's the same. We were all in this together. We've got a role to play. And all we did is say, hey, for us to play that role, we just need a little bit of help, yeah, and to do the right thing, whether Chinese or Japanese or Americans or others, whoever they want to come and open banks.

“That's up to them, and good on them. And you know, there will be benefits in that, in terms of competition, new ideas, new technology, and other things that'll make in many cases, those things are beneficial to a source.”