B.N.Z. to open branch in Western Australia

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 23

B.N.Z. to open branch in Western Australia

NZPA Perth The first new bank to appear in Perth in almost 12 years will open its doors for trading at the end of August.

The newcomer is the Bank of New Zealand, the only holder of a banking licence never to have traded in Western Australia.

B.N.Z. is one of only two foreign banks to hold licences to trade in Australia. The other is Banque Nationale de Paris, which opened a branch in Melbourne in 1881 to service the wool-export trade and which opened its Perth office in November 1969. B.N.Z. was a little slower to find its way west than B.N.P. It is now 109 years since B.N.Z. opened in Melbourne. and though it expanded into the Sydney market three years later, in 1875, il resumed its expansion programme only in the last five years.

The bank’s regional mana-

ger for Australia, Mr Rex Edmons, said the time was ripe for B.N.Z. to be represented in all Australian states and that an Adelaide office would come soon after Perth's.

Other existing branches are Brisbane. Surfers Paradise. Chatswood, Dandenong, and Parramatta.

The newly appointed manager at Perth, Mr John Pickering, said further ahead the west Australian programme called for a small state branch system. His office and banking chamber will occupy the former Bank of Adelaide premises on street level at the corner of St George’s Terrace and Howard Street. The bank will offer full savings, cheque and other traditional retail bank facilities. including an international service. It is having to build business almost from scratch, having only a few corporate customers re-

presented in Perth

B.N.Z. is a small bank by Australian standards and operates in Australia on a low-key, self-funding basis. But in New Zealand it is the dominant force, with a strong 42 per cent grip on total bank deposits. The bank is owned by the New Zealand Government, but it trades independently under a charter.

Through a subsidiary it owns a 50 per cent share of the Sydney-based Hunter B.N.Z. Finance, Ltd, and there are plans to introduce the financier to Western Australia as well. In New Zealand B.N.Z. has 387 offices and assets of more than $3300 million, ft also runs more than 30 foreign offices, in London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Singapore.

The Perth branch will start with a staff of about 10, most of them recruited there.