The Australia and New Zealand Banking GrpLtd (ASX: ANZ) share price has been a positive performer on the day of its annual general meeting.
In afternoon trade the banking giant's shares are up 2% to $23.41.
This latest gain means the ANZ share price is now up an impressive 35% since the start of October.
What happened at the annual general meeting?
At the event, ANZ's Chairman and CEO provided investors with a thorough breakdown of the company's performance over the last 12 months and their expectations for the future.
Three key takeaways from the event are as follows:
2020 has been a difficult year.
There's no getting away from the fact that 2020 has been a difficult year for the bank because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking about its results in FY 2020, CEO Shayne Elliott commented: "It was of course COVID that had the most material impact on our profitability. With operating profit before these provisions broadly flat, the largest driver of the profit reduction was setting aside a further $1.7bn for possible future losses."
ANZ's underlying performance has been positive.
With COVID provisions dominating the bank's results, it actually overshadowed a positive underlying performance by ANZ this year.
Mr Elliott explained: "…our diversified business delivered a decent revenue performance. In Australia, we achieved six-months of consecutive market share growth in our targeted owner-occupier market, while deposit growth remained very strong. We also introduced new processes to help customers move to online banking."
"The work we have spoken about for several years to simplify and refocus the Institutional business proved massively beneficial. In fact, our institutional bank outperformed and I'm proud of its transformation. It demonstrates the value of a well-balanced, diversified portfolio in a market defined by high levels of liquidity, low interest rates and geopolitical tensions." He added.
COVID-19 has changed things for the better.
The CEO also spoke about the future and advised that he is looking at COVID-19 differently.
He said: "There is another way of thinking about a crisis – it is of course just a period of rapid change. In fact, many of the great companies we think of today, companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon forged their success in periods of great dislocation. This is because people in a time of crisis have new needs and good companies figure out how to provide for them."
"And this is where my focus and the focus of my team is. We stand ready to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise. We are supporting our best customers and will emerge with stronger relationships than we started. We will continue to reshape our portfolio to produce a more balanced, lower risk business that generates decent, more predictable returns. We are going to continue to make the bank simpler and easier to manage," he added.
Mr Elliott pointed to its recent partnership with global payments leader Worldline as a great example of this.
He notes that this partnership will provide its "small business customers with access to the world's best technology, allow them to get paid, quickly, safely and at low cost."
