ANZ planners left out of ING JV

The ANZ Bank will look to double its adviser sales force to over 600 within three years after it was confirmed yesterday that its in-house financial planners would not be included in the group’s joint venture withING.

The joint venture deal, finalised yesterday after months of negotiations, will create the fourth largest retail manager in Australia - behind the Commonwealth Bank, theNational Australia BankandAMP- with $26.7 billion of retail funds under management.

And both groups announced ambitious plans yesterday to treble the flow of funds coming from ANZ distribution channels such as bank branches by boosting the sale of new products manufactured by the joint venture.

“At the ANZ we are targeting a three times increase in retail funds inflow by 2005 from ANZ distributions channels and to do that we need to substantially increase the financial planning sales force,” ANZ chief executive John McFarlane says.

But ANZ said yesterday that it’s in-house financial planners would not join the joint venture, to be called ING Australia, to avoid “conflicts of interest” with ING’s network of independent dealer groups, which have been incorporated into the joint venture.

McFarlane says the ANZ planners will instead remain close to the bank, where they will concentrate on improving their lead generation through the bank’s branch network.

ING Australia will also create a specific division, ANZ Distribution Development, to develop strategies for boosting the sale of products from the new venture through the ANZ branch network.

“ANZ has an extensive bank network which is the basis for the distribution opportunities which we are trying to capture,” regional general manager of ING Asia Pacific Peter Smyth says.

ANZ revealed yesterday that it would pay ING $960 million for its 49 per cent stake in the joint venture, which will have a total value of $3.75 billion.