ANZ's domination of ING no surprise

ANZ’s move to acquire the 51% of ING New Zealand it doesn’t already own is no surprise to the market, Goodreturns.co.nz publisher Philip Macalister says. ING’s Dutch-based parent company has signalled that it wanted to sell assets, meanwhile ANZ, particularly in Australia, needed to pick up speed in the important wealth management market. The move makes ANZ the biggest KiwiSaver provider in New Zealand with just under a quarter of the market. A comprehensive survey published by Goodreturns.co.nz this week compared the funds under management for all KiwiSaver providers. (Read the survey here.) ING is the most successful overall provider with a total 212,732 members and $523 million (as at March 31) across the four schemes it manages - the ING default scheme, ANZ, National Bank and SIL. Many questioned whether the ING brand had been damaged beyond repair following all the troubles the fund manager had with its CDO-backed Diversified Yield and Regular Income funds. In its announcement ANZ says it has negotiated the right to use the ING brand for 12 months. “The deal today most probably spells the end of the ING brand in New Zealand,” Macalister says. One of the biggest challenges for ANZ will be to win over the independent financial adviser market. Currently ING distributes most of its funds and life insurance via the independent adviser market. ANZ doesn’t deal with this market and will need to learn how to manage it to be successful with ING.