ANZ Wishes ASG & TBAS All the Best

anz-joanne-tasi

So what is ANZ’s reaction to the opening of the Territorial Bank of American Samoa?

ANZ’s Country Manager Joanne Rasmassen says ANZ has continued to “faithfully provide banking services to the people of American Samoa, despite experiencing an increase in customer and transaction volumes over the past 12-18 months.”

“ANZ welcomes competition as it is good for service standards and in turn good for our customers to have a choice,” she told KHJ News.

Rasmussen added, “ANZ sincerely wishes the American Samoa Government and the new Territorial Bank of American Samoa all the best!”

it was mentioned in the testimony of the TBAS Board of Directors in the Senate lasr week that the new government bank has opened close to 400 accounts.

When asked if ANZ customers have been closing their accounts, Rasmussen said they “have not seen any changes to our transaction and account activity or volumes.”

For sure the opening of TBAS has put a dent in some of the key staff positions at ANZ.

For example TBAS’ Operations Manager, Makerita Polu, was the second longest serving employee at ANZ.

Asked how many staffers they’ve lost to TBAS, Rasmussen replied,“We have had a few staff leave to join the new bank and we wish thSem well. In turn, we are also excited to have on-board a number of very talented individuals’ to join the ANZ team.”

TBAS Board Chairman Utu Abe Malae stated at last week’s Senate hearing that it’s disappointing that the commercial banks are not issuing loans and appear to have given up on giving loans to the community.

Asked if ANZ has indeed stopped issuing loans, the Country Manager said she confirms and reassures their valuable customers that ANZ continues to offer retail and commercial lending products and services to qualified applicants.

Even before TBAS opened its doors yesterday, the board and staff were aggressively marketing the bank.

We asked the ANZ boss what if any is ANZs response, and will the bank introduce new services or upgrade existing ones.

Rasmussen answered that American Samoa, ANZ offers a simple product suite to suit the size and scale of this market.

She said ANZ will continue to focus on offering customers more convenient, cost and time effective alternatives” such as its electronic banking platform consisting of online banking, utilizing their 200 plus Point of Sale terminals and 8 ATMs across 7 locations with 5 of those locations accessible to customers 24 hours /7 days a week.

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