Profile: ANZ's regional brand builder Wendy Lim

Given the amount of bad press certain banks encountered during the global financial crisis, one might assume that banking - and marketing the sector - would be something of an unenviable task. Not so for ANZ’s Wendy Lim, who is now charged with heading up both retail banking and marketing in Asia and beyond for a brand that is in an aggressive growth mode.

A major strength for ANZ, Lim says, is that its reputation wasn’t tarnished by the financial crisis. She says the fact that the bank is double-A rated is very important, especially post-recession.

“These days people are really looking at the quality of the bank. ANZ has never been associated with the global financial crisis in terms of bad press, so we’re starting with a clean sheet as opposed to having to deal with past noise from the economic crisis.”

Athough ANZ was able to avoid the negative press that many banks suffered, it did acquire and integrate a whole host of selected Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) businesses in Asia, a financial institution which did come under major attack during the financial crisis. Like many other banks, ANZ has since changed its marketing message. According to Lim, getting back to the basics of personal banking is a huge part of their messaging moving forward.

“What’s new about us is bringing back what’s old and forgotten,” she says. “It’s really about bringing back what I call the ‘old-fashioned banker’, a term which incidentally a lot of our RM’s (relationship managers) don’t like,” she notes with a smile.

To deliver on this message has meant optimising the client-to-RM ratio and widening the RM’s remit. Lim says pre-financial crisis, banks tended to focus mainly on wealth management solutions as the markets were growing, with everybody chasing after capital. 

“The message to our RM’s is that we want to deliver the old-style banking where customers walked in and whether it’s just to make a payment, get a credit card, or they want a mortgage, we can talk to them about their financial needs in totality.”

Having assumed the newly-created role of managing director retail banking and wealth management Asia-Pacific at ANZ back in January 2010, less than a year later Lim was appointed to the role of general manager for marketing Asia-Pacific, Europe and America, a move ANZ says, was in recognition of her extensive marketing experience and success.

Now responsible for ANZ’s retail banking and wealth management business in 21 markets, the biggest single challenge Lim faces is how best to prioritise from the markets she now oversees.

Each country has huge growth potential for the bank, she says, but each is at a differing stage of maturity, brand presence and marketing need. The acquisition of the former RBS business in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand gave ANZ enhanced presence in key markets in Asia-Pacific. But the bank was also left with many questions to be answered.

Lim says that while some of the markets are a “priority” from a business standpoint, they might not have as robust a brand positioning as ANZ would like. “In some of those markets we already have good brand awareness, but now we’re at the second level - looking at people’s propensity to purchase - and if that’s not as strong as we would like, then the plan is to make sure of the strong propositions we put into the marketplace.”

Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia are ANZ’s current priority markets, “and clearly China. Once we get our RMB licence many new opportunities will open up to us.”

While ANZ is a major player in the Pacific, with up to 40 per cent market share on average, and a history dating back more than a hundred years, Lim also points to Taiwan as one market in which the bank has moved from minimal presence to a fully-fledged business in the past year. She says that in some markets they are entering for the first time the most basic challenge is building the brand and educating consumers about ANZ’s brand promise.

“And once that’s done, we have to ensure we have very strong propositions for the different segments we’re targeting. The third level is then making the customer take notice so we can make them an offer.”

Under Lim’s leadership, ANZ successfully launched its Signature Priority Banking programme, a personalised and relationship-based banking and wealth management service specifically for affluent customers in Asia-Pacific. Now offered in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam, there are plans to introduce the service in Pacific nations such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea soon. Very different marketing needs in countries of vastly varied maturity clearly makes appointing a single AOR rather complicated, and the official line is that ANZ is in the process of benchmarking its current creative agencies to ensure the best possible outcome for ANZ’s brand across all the markets it operates. At press time, the bank was in the final stages of a creative pitch to handle its US$55 million global branding business. And while there is internal governance ensuring a consistency of message, Lim makes a clear distinction between the marketing needs of ANZ’s institutional business, which is directed globally out of their Melbourne headquarters, and the retail business, which by nature has to be more local and targeted.

Lim’s career path into marketing started at college in the US, when she was forced to pick a discipline. “As with all Asians, I wanted something to make a career out of. A lot of my friends had chosen computer science, which shows you how old I am, or finance and economics. Nobody was really going into marketing. When I looked at universities in Singapore, they weren’t even offering a degree in it, so I thought ‘great, when I go back I’ll be one of the pioneering group with a degree in marketing’.”

Lim’s qualification subsequently led her to a marketing role within a bank, and she’s never looked back. Her self-confessed “strongest skillset” is with numbers, and she was quickly able to parlay this asset into a career in the finance sector. “I excelled at accounting and finance, which was a good mix,” she says. “I think bankers tend to perceive marketers only as people who spend money, so with a strong financial background I was able to make a connection, which gives me credibility. They would say ‘Wow, finally someone from marketing who can talk to me about my return on investment’.”

In a 20-year career, Lim has worked for HSBC, as well as RBS itself before moving to ANZ. In 2007, she was identified amongst the ‘100 Most Promising Young Bankers in the Asia-Pacific and Gulf region’ by The Asian Banker. Nowadays, the, “double-hatting”, as she calls it - overseeing both the retail banking business and marketing - is even more beneficial, as personal banking, rather than institutional, tends to be very much marketing driven.

Overall, Lim feels that ANZ is well-placed to make significant ground in Asia. “Many of our clients want to do business in different countries, we can make that as seamless as possible. For example, affluent Indonesians have domestic banking needs that we can take care of, as well as offshore banking options if they want a safe-haven. If their kids go to Australia to study, they will often buys houses and cars there. Our more holistic approach enables us to target domestic, offshore, and host wallets.” 

This article was originally published in the April issue of Campaign Asia-Pacific.