ANZ’s Shayne Elliott says banks ‘can’t save everyone’ from the coronavirus crisis hit

Banks making ‘life or death decisions literally every hour’ for businesses and households.

ANZ Bank chief executive Shayne Elliott has said the coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity for the banks to restore their reputations. Picture: AAP

ANZ Bank chief executive Shayne Elliott has said the coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity for the banks to restore their reputations, but warned that the industry’s resources were finite and it couldn’t “save everybody”.

In an interview on ABC Radio in Melbourne, Mr Elliott agreed that the banks would make “life or death decisions literally every hour of the day” for businesses, with the same principle applying to households.

“But we can’t over-simplify this and say the banks can save everyone,” he said.

“We don’t have endless resources either.

“We have highly leveraged balance sheets because of the nature of what we do, and we have depositors to look after too.

“So we have masses of capacity, but it’s not limitless.”

The banks have played a key role in hardship and assistance packages rolled out by the government in recent weeks.

The value of the stimulus so far is $189bn - equivalent to about 10 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

As the big four banks get swamped by inquiries about a range of packages, the potential for a post-royal commission turnaround in the industry’s shattered reputation has not been lost on its participants.

At the same, one banker has said that the big four were “shovelling billions out the door” to try and keep the economy functioning.

“We have a real opportunity to stand up and play our role in what is going to be a very, very difficult time,” Mr Elliott said.

As to the prospect of relief on punishing credit card interest rates, the ANZ chief said the industry’s focus so far had been on home owners and small businesses.

The bank had $300bn in home loans compared to only $7bn in credit card debt and personal loans.

However, Mr Elliott said he was “looking at all the alternatives in the coming days”.