(March 18): ANZ Group Holdings Ltd chief executive officer Shayne Elliott aims to grow the firm’s presence in India and Vietnam as well as in China as his clients require the bank’s services in an increasing number of locations.

“Our business is shifting geographically quite fast,” Elliott said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Hong Kong on Monday. “We need to respond to that as a bank. We are building out our capability in places like India, or like Vietnam, to help with that capacity as we see those trade flows and capital flows shift.”

Most of the Australian bank’s business across the Asia-Pacific is through its institutional bank, and the international return-on-equity has grown to mid-teens, up from around 3% when Elliott became CEO more than eight years ago, he said. In mainland China, where ANZ has about 300 people, he expects the business to keep growing.

“Right now there is still an enormous demand for our services in mainland China,” he said. “Our business there is growing, not shrinking, same here in Hong Kong. We will continue to invest in our platforms and capabilities in Hong Kong and mainland China.”

Investors are monitoring the next move from Elliott at ANZ after the lender was given the green light to acquire Suncorp Group Ltd’s banking arm. The firm earlier this month reduced its stake in AMMB Holdings Bhd and Elliott said the bank’s strategy was focused on exiting positions it has in Bank of Tianjin Co and Bank Pan Indonesia.

“The sooner we can find more appropriate shareholders, the better,” Elliott said.

In its home market of Australia, Elliott struck a more hawkish tone than that of the bank’s economists on the outlook for interest rates.

“The house view is that we’ll probably see rate cuts towards the end of the calendar year, my personal view is that’s still optimistic,” he said. “Inflation is still more hard set in Australia and around the world than people think.”