Banker Dean Cleland must never be stuck for shoptalk when he’s reunited with his Melbourne peers -- his work for Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has been anything but dull. From 1994 to 1998 he worked in Papua New Guinea as a relationship manager in business banking. In 2001, as COO of the bank’s Pacific region, he helped establish ANZ’s presence in newly independent, strife-torn East Timor; later he oversaw the bank’s acquisitions and integrations in American Samoa, Fiji, Kiribati and Vanuatu.
Now Cleland, 39, is exploring yet another frontier: Phnom Penh, where he’s the CEO of ANZ Royal Bank Cambodia. The first Western bank to play a major role in Cambodia, ANZ is investing $13 million for a 55 percent stake in the bank venture alongside Royal Group, one of Cambodia’s largest mobile telephone companies.
The country is wide-open banking territory. Just 120,000 of its 4 million people have bank accounts, and Cleland estimates that only one tenth of personal savings are held in formal accounts. Most people keep their cash stashed under the futon. But Cleland hopes to help change that. After arriving in Cambodia in February, he went to work scouring the country for branch sites. He is planning to open four in Phnom Penh and one in Siem Reap by the end of July. That’s just the beginning. “We have plans for a complete provincial network,” he says. ANZ also aims to build an extensive ATM system and introduce the country’s first Internet banking service.
There are 1 million potential customers in Cambodia, Cleland estimates. Assuming average annual economic growth of 5 percent over the next four years, that number will double by 2009.
The future may also hold further adventures in pioneer banking for Cleland. “Cambodia is not a one-off,” he predicts. “ANZ expects a number of these ventures across the Asia region.”
