ANZ’s wealth business continues to perform well as benefits from buying the RBS Asian business continue to be identified, says CEO Mike Smith.

“The contribution from the retail and wealth businesses has increased as the benefits of the RBS transaction continue to emerge and further improvements are made in product offerings and systems support,” he said in a briefing on the bank’s nine-month performance.

ANZ’s wealth business includes OnePath while the retail division provides financial services to high-net-worth individuals.

The bank has reported an unaudited underlying profit after tax of $4.2 billion for the nine months ending June 30.

Mr Smith is optimistic about the Australian economy and opportunities in Asia for its business units.

“Despite the market turmoil, which has continued in July and August, there is good reason for optimism in our key domestic markets in Australia and New Zealand,” he said. 

With the economic gloom at present, “there are still significant opportunities across our business”.

“We are continuing to develop stronger customer propositions in all our businesses and our investment in operational hubs is allowing us to drive further productivity gains,” he said. 

“The bottom line is we have the right strategy, we are in the right markets and we have steady momentum in our customer franchises which allows us to be cautiously optimistic about our prospects despite the market volatility.”