ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos, in his first half-year results since taking over from Shayne Elliott, posted a $3.8 billion HY26 cash profit and used the result to characterise the Iran conflict as an event the bank is built to withstand rather than an economic crisis already in train, while flagging that the equation tips the other way the longer the Middle East fighting drags on.
In a recorded conversation with ANZ's Alicia Aitken released by ANZ Newsroom, Matos walked through customer health, the bank's exposures, and the second leg of the ANZ 2030 strategy he set out in October.
"Customers, it's fair to say, are starting to face this situation in a relatively good position," Matos said. "If you start with consumers, consumers have today a very high level of savings. Having said that, inflation levels are spiking. And undoubtedly, they have to spend more money in transportation, for example, and they'll have less money to spend in discretionary spending. So they are starting to feel some impact. Hardship levels have not changed yet, which is a good indicator, but it's too soon to say."
The wholesale book is in similar shape, he said. "On the wholesale side, large corporates started this journey with a lot of cash. Very well prepared to this kind of disruptions, in general. But again, if things continue to be like this, if the access to critical commodities is constrained, they will start feeling more limitations. And as you go down into lower businesses, including to small business, they are already feeling very clearly the rise of input costs."
In a separate briefing reported by The Australian, Matos drew the cleanest line yet from any major-bank chief executive on what the conflict actually represents. "It's not that we have an economic crisis," he said. "We have an event — a geographic event — that can feed into an economic crisis if it stays for a long [time]."
Matos said the bank's direct exposure is limited. "Our Middle East exposure is barely less than 1% of our exposure in the wholesale side. And we have a very robust balance sheet. We have 83% of our wholesale exposures are investment grade. So we feel we're in the right spot, good capital levels. We are very optimistic in terms of how we can face this crisis."
The HY26 print itself leaned heavily on cost discipline. "We are very satisfied with our performance," Matos said. "We launched a strategy last year. We were very clear. It has two phases. A first phase where we have to dedicate time to our five immediate priorities. And then a second phase beyond 2027 where we would capitalise on all those foundations and start outperforming the market. We are already seeing the benefits of what we've been executing. We've been executing margin management to a much better level. Cost management is at a great pace. We have reduced costs by 9% half on half. Our returns are materially higher. Our cost to operate materially lower."
The second-half priorities Matos laid out are largely operational. ANZ has named Emma Mattered as the new head of business banking and rolled out a fresh corporate values platform. The Suncorp banking integration, the largest moving piece on the strategy timetable, is locked to a June 2027 deadline, with a single customer front-end targeted for September 2027. "Our productivity agenda is on track," Matos said. "As I said, we reduced costs by 9% half on half. And very, very important, our non-financial risk management agenda, our upgrade of our risk management framework is absolutely on track and is one of our most important priorities."
The bank also published its first independent assurance report on its non-financial risk uplift, a regulatory-driven program Matos called "priority number one for the bank." The work, he said, runs on a three-year embedment timetable, and the assurance reviewer found ANZ tracking to plan. "Well, this is very important. This is priority number one for the bank — to uplift the way we manage our risk in this company," Matos said. "It's a long journey. It's a journey of three years to get into an embedment state."