Trevor Hart Banking in a New World: the Beginnings of ANZ Bank
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Trevor Hart Banking in a new world: the beginnings of ANZ Bank Proceedings of the ICOMON meetings, held in conjunction with the ICOM Conference, Melbourne (Australia, 10-16 October, 1998), ed. by Peter Lane and John Sharples. Melbourne, Numismatic Association of Australia, Inc, 2000. 117 p. (NAA Special publication, 2). (English). pp. 39-46 Downloaded from: www.icomon.org BANKING IN A NEW WORLD THE BEGINNINGS OF ANZ BANK By Trevor Hart ANZ Bank, Melbourne, Australia For its first twenty-nine years proposed to the Government in Australia had no bank. The British England, the formation of "The New settlement of Australia began in South Wales Loan Bank" based on 1788, but Australia's first bank, the the bank at the Cape of Good Hope. Bank of New South Wales, did not In 1812 the government refused open until 1817. his proposal. Macquarie accepted this refusal but was still convinced of Australia was founded as a the need for a bank in the colony.4 In self-supporting penal colony and 1816 he acted again, this time monetary arrangements were ad hoc. "convening a meeting of the A local currency of small private magistrates, principal merchants and promissory notes grew up in gentlemen of Sydney ... at which my conjunction with the circulation of favourite measure of a bank was Government Store receipts. This led brought forward."5 Macquarie issued to a dual monetary standard in a 'charter' for seven years to the which 'currency' came to mean directors of the new bank (which "money of purely local was later disallowed by the British acceptability" and 'sterling' meant Government) and on 8 April 1817 "any form of money ... equal in the Bank of New South Wales value and acceptability to bills on opened for business.6 After a number the Treasury".1 of restructurings and acquisitions the bank emerged in 1982 as Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, the Westpac Banking Corporation under colony's fifth governor2 attempted to which name it still trades as one of reform the monetary system. His first Australia's "big four" banks. acts included attempts to solve the shortage of 'specie' by proclaiming With the colony changing from fixed values for the various types of convict to free-market, S J Butlin coins that came into the colony. (Australia's major writer on the England, at Macquarie's request, also colonial monetary system) saw three exported dollars from India to main groups of events affecting the Australia and instructions were given monetary system: to the Governor to take steps to - the introduction of the Spanish prevent their re-export. This was dollar as legal tender in 1822; done by converting the silver coins - British legislation setting a to 'holey' dollars and creating a sterling standard in 1825 thus locally over-valued currency. The effectively creating the Australian holey dollar was given a face value pound; and of five shillings and the "dump" or - the multiplication of the banks central piece, fifteen pence or one from 1824.7 shilling and threepence. (The 'holey' dollar was, of course, not a new idea Ten banks were formed by the end of as it had already been used with the decade and all faced hard times coinage in the Caribbean.3) following the financial crisis of 1826 and a prolonged depression from In April 1810, four months after he 1828 to 1830. arrived in Australia, Macquarie 39 By the end of 1840 over 40 banks At the first annual meeting of the had been proposed for Australia and Bank's shareholders held in June 28 had actually started operation. 1835, the chairman, John Studholme Brownrigg, gave a * lengthy description of the processes Australia & New Zealand Banking of establishing the Bank.10 While Group Limited began trading on 1st waiting for the charter to issue the October 1970 and is the result of a Bank issued its prospectus, issued number of significant mergers. Its shares, prepared the Deed of Anglo-Australian origins go back Settlement and recruited some staff. through some fourteen banks. Since it was formed it has become the With the receipt of the Charter, the beneficiary of five other banking directors were able to start business companies, one with a background of and they dispatched their staff to building societies well into the Australia on 10th July 1835. Offices nineteenth century. Another, were opened in Sydney and Hobart Grindlays Bank, brings in a rich in December, and in Launceston in legacy as an Anglo-Indian bank January 1836 following the begun in the late 1820s. But, it is acquisition of the business of the the Anglo-Australian business I will Cornwall Bank which had begun in talk about. Launceston in May 1828. Sydney was designated as the head office. ANZ's first major forebear, the Bank of Australasia, was formed in Meanwhile, on 7th July 1837 a 1833 but efforts to establish it can resolution was taken in London to be traced to 1832 when the Sydney form The Union Bank of Australasia. papers carried circumstantial The name was changed to The Union reports on plans for a "Bank and Bank of Australia after complaints Whaling Company on the Scotch from the Bank of Australasia about principle."8 The whaling idea was the similarity of name. The abandoned and the plan developed prospectus was authorised for into a Royal Bank of Australasia and insertion in seven of the London daily South Africa. The company would papers11 but according to Butlin this operate under a Royal charter was unnecessary as all shares were sought from the British Treasury in taken up without the publicity. May 1833, which would limit the Unlike the Bank of Australasia, the liability of shareholders to twice the Union Bank was a joint-stock amount of their shareholding. company with unlimited liability, and it traded as a joint-stock company The Treasury had laid down new until it registered under the English rules relating to applications for companies act in 1880. colonial banking charters on 1 April 1833, following a succession of By its title, the Union Bank indicated earlier initiatives relating to joint its intention "to facilitate the junction stock companies. A minute relating with some of the existing banks" in to the Australasia's petition said: Australia. In fact only one was available. The Tamar Bank was As this is the first application st for a charter for a colonial founded in Launceston on 1 banking company ... [since the January 1835 but was shaken by a rules were laid down] the con- conflict with the Bank of Australasia ditions now established will and accordingly sought a merger serve as a guide to the future.9 with the new Union Bank. The only other potential merger candidate was the Derwent Bank in Hobart 40 who invited negotiations but no South Australia was a ‘company records remain to evidence the settlement’ founded under ideas discussion. similar to those of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Angas promoted the The Union Bank's entry into South Australian Company that Melbourne was by absorption of the acquired the responsibility for Derwent Bank's agency. The settling migrants as well as its Derwent had opened in Melbourne normal trading activities. To in February 1838 but was not soundly augment its services the company based. When the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney opened a banking department in opened an agency in Melbourne in 1837 under the control of Edmund June, and knowing that the Bank of Stephens. During his passage across Australasia was also to open, the the Indian Ocean from South Africa, Derwent happily shed its agency to Stephens had had a tent made by the the Union Bank. ship's sail maker from canvas bought in Cape Town. This tent, 27 feet by The Bank of Australasia opened in 14 feet (about 8.25 x 4.25 metres) Melbourne at the direct request of was pitched on the beach and used as the Governor of New South Wales, a bank, the manager's residence, and Sir George Gipps. The bank shipped a church on Sundays. Stephens its equipment, notes and specie, two had brought materials for a house but bulldogs and an armed guard to they stayed on the beach because in Melbourne on the government's early, un-surveyed Adelaide, the cutter. Their premises were a cottage cost of carting them the nine of four rooms; two for banking and kilometres to the town was too two for living. The staff slept with the expensive. Banking began as soon cash chest between their beds and as the tent was pitched and it was the dogs had the run of the yard at some months before the bank was night. By 1841, despite competition moved to Adelaide. from the Union Bank, the business was almost as big as at Sydney and The growth of the banking the Superintendent suggested that department was rapid and by 1842 the head-office be moved there the bank was split off from the from the northern city. It was not South Australian Company as a until nearly ten years after the gold separate business - The South discoveries, when it was clear that Australian Banking Company. The Melbourne had eclipsed Sydney as bank reaped the benefit of the financial capital of the colonies, expansion caused by the discoveries that the head office was moved. The of copper in South Australia in the Union Bank also moved its head 1840s. Fifty years later, when it had office from Sydney to Melbourne in overtraded in a later, great the early sixties. Australian economic boom, the bank was on the verge of collapse and George Fife Angas played a major offered itself to the Union Bank.