Westpac tantrum or no, it faces an NZ conundrum

Does Westpac really want to sell its NZ business? And who might buy it?

Thu, 25 Mar 2021

Westpac may be deadly serious about quitting New Zealand after 160 years, but it is at least possible that it's just throwing a tantrum because the pesky NZ banking regulator has been making life difficult for it for quite a few years.Adrian Orr, the governor of the NZ regulator, the Reserve Bank, certainly has history with the Australian banks having previously been chief economist at two of them, Westpac and National Bank, which is now part of ANZ Bank.And Orr was RBNZ's chief economist when RBNZ forced Westpac, which was kicking and...

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