STAFF MERGER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 162, 22 April 1942, Page 3

STAFF MERGER.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. BANKS. PROPOSAL IN LONDON. LONDON, April ‘2O. ‘'Plans, at present in their earliest stages, for telescoping Australian and New Zealand banks and insurance offices in London, are being discussed in the City,” says the Australian Associated Press. “The Ministry of Labour has been investigating possibilities of amalgamating many financial organisations. The purpose is to release manpower for the war effort, and the suggestion has been made that the Australian banks centre all their activities in the Commonwealth Bank and that the N.ew Zealand banks centre theirs, presumably, in the Bank of New Zealand. It is estimated that a large proportion of the Australian banking staffs, at present numbering about 500, would be released.” .The Australian Associated Press understand that the trading banks oppose the scheme on the ground that the saving of manpower is likely to prove, in effect, far below the official estimate, while it is also argued that it; would be unfair to deprive the banks of goodwill sedulously built up over a long period, with the additional danger that in the absence of compulsion clients might transfer their accounts to British banks, entailing a permanent loss to Australian and New Zealand banking connections.