For more on the ANZ / Suncorp Bank tie up plesae read this. 

Nathan Zaia: I think it was a reasonable acquisition for ANZ to make. If you rewind a couple of years, ANZ had been losing share in the home loan space in particular and at the same time, they're investing quite heavily in their digital offering, digitizing their processes. So, if you're spending money, best way to get a return on that is to be doing more volume and having more revenue coming through. So, it wasn't ideal that they're losing share. So, this is a pretty quick way to get that market share back up. But then they also have additional opportunities to take out costs from Suncorp Bank and there might even be funding cost advantages, ANZ having a better credit rating.

The only downside is though, ANZ did pay a full price for Suncorp Bank, 1.3 times book value, that's similar to what a wide moat bank like Westpac trades at. So, if you take that and then you add in the transition costs and commitments to Queensland in terms of branches and stuff, it takes a long time to get these synergies out. So, shareholders are left to wait quite a while to see whether it was a value accretive deal or not.

Look, I think the reality will be it won't have much of an impact at all. ANZ really had to fix its own offering in the market, and it has been doing that. And whether they can do it without reverting to price is what we'll be watching closely over the next few years. Buying Suncorp Bank might give them the opportunity to have their own bank running more efficiently. But I don't think it substantially lessens competition. There's plenty of alternatives out there for borrowers, depositors. And Suncorp wasn't really a digital innovator or a disruptor in the market. What they were offering was pretty vanilla. So, I don't think there will be that much change. And I don't think competitors like CBA or Westpac or even NAB are sitting there thinking, oh, no, ANZ just got a whole lot bigger, they're going to be able to outspend us and outprice us. Westpac and CBA still have much larger loan books anyway. So, I don't really think this is something that shakes up the industry.

Yeah, I think it's very straightforward for Suncorp. They're exiting what is a subscale bank and they're getting a good price for it. So, I think that's very good for shareholders. And most of those funds will be returned in some shape or form to shareholders. But look, I don't think the insurance business has been necessarily underinvested in or management has lost focus. So, I don't really expect a whole lot to change there. But in saying that it can't hurt that management is solely focused on their general insurance business and all the attention and capital can be directed towards that. So, I think that's a net positive for Suncorp.