ANZ Banking Group has become the first Australian bank to enter the Aussie market in a joint venture announced today with ETF Securities to list six new securities on the Australian Securities Exchange.
The new venture, ANZ ETFS, will list ETFs linked to US dollar and the Chinese Renminbi via deposits at the bank, physical gold stored in its giant vault in Singapore and three equity index linked ETFs tied to the US and Australian share markets.
Australia's ETF market has almost tripled in size since late 2012, and ETF Securities sees further potential in the market with increasing appetite for the products. Graham Tuckwell, founder of ETF Securities, sees co-operations between established businesses as a major factor to support this growth by building on respective expertise.
ANZ ETFS has licenced three indices developed and calculated by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its equity ETFs, including the S&P ASX 100 Index, the S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index and a new S&P/ASX 300 Shareholder Yield Index, which was launched this morning and represents Australian listed companies with the highest shareholder yields.
Further products and additional asset classes will be added over time, the company says, and in other Asia Pacific markets such as Hong Kong in response to demand from investors and intermediaries.
ANZ ETFS will be based in Sydney and includes employees from both ANZ and ETF Securities. Eddie Listorti, ANZ Global Co-Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities, said: “This partnership unites ANZ’s extensive knowledge of Australian financial markets and the domestic investment base, with ETF Securities’ expertise in constructing and operating ETF products. ANZ ETFS’ objective is to provide a range of high quality and low cost investment products that will in time provide diversified exposure to all major asset classes.”
Joyce Phillips, ANZ CEO of Global Wealth, added: “ETFs are increasingly being used by our customers as an important, often tactical, part of their portfolios. ANZ Wealth will continue to offer these, as part of innovative investment solutions, to our customers.”
Graham Tuckwell, Founder and Chairman of ETF Securities, said: “Australia was amongst the pioneers of ETFs over a decade ago, but since then has watched overseas markets adopt them more widely and faster. We believe this is now changing as Australian investors embrace ETFs, investing record levels over the last year. They are recognising ETFs’ multiple advantages, especially intelligent and low cost access to a broad range of benchmarks. This is why we are excited to be partnering with ANZ to offer a new and comprehensive ETF platform, delivering more choice and greater access to Australian investors.”
