BRIANT                                 A.S. (ALAN)                         88 YEARS             5/09/2020

Peter Briant, son of our Honorary member Alan Briant emailed “I wish to advise with deep sorrow that my father Alan Briant passed away on 5^th September 2020 after a short illness.  He unfortunately succumbed to the COVID 19 virus in the aged care facility he had only recently moved into with his wife of 62 years, Ruth.  I believe he was a member of the ANZ Retired Officers Club which I recall he was looking forward to enjoying the celebrations of the ANZ/ES&A merger 50^th Anniversary.

Alan had worked with ES&A/ANZ in Tasmania, since the age of 16, starting as a Clerk then onto Bank Teller. He worked his way around Tasmania working in Wynyard, Oatlands, New Norfolk, Moonah and then finally in Hobart where he became an Auditor. I think he retired in 1992.  My parents moved to Victoria in 2002, residing in Bairnsdale where they enjoyed many years there till “old age” brought them to Melbourne, to be closer to family. 

Alan fondly told us how he enjoyed receiving the monthly ANZROC (Vic) newsletters and wished he was able to attend one of your lunches when he moved to Melbourne.

Please pass this email onto all the members of ANZROC.”

Our condolences were extended to son Peter and wife Ruth and family on the passing of our Honorary member Alan Briant.

ANZ/ES&A MERGER 50^th ANNIVERSARY – 1 OCTOBER 2020

BUT FIRST, A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY

ANZ an Official History, written by David Merrett, was launched in 1985 – Chapter 11 covered events leading up to the merger. It was titled “MARRIAGE”.

The following extracts from this chapter will awaken the memories of those who worked in each of the banks at that time and provide others with an interesting overview of the manoeuvrings and intrigue that preceded the eventual merger.

‘On 10 December 1968 the two banks finally announced that they were to wed. The excitement and drama of this statement disguised the fact that neither party was entering into the union with particularly strong conviction. The reasons that compelled the respective boards were essentially those that were mooted since the 1930s and were the basis for the birth of ANZ Bank (the merger of the Bank of Australasia and The Union Bank of Australia). They were primarily defensive. The impulse towards a merger came from the boards. Those few ANZ Bank executives who knew about the proposal were either non-committal or against it. The ES&A’s highest management was strongly opposed, so much so that they were able to scuttle the proposal when it was first raised in May 1966.However, the ES&A directors presented their executive with a fait accompli by deciding to merge even before the second round of negotiations began in April 1968’.

‘Unlike the Australasia and Union merger, this was no joining of equals; the ES&A was roughly half the size of ANZ Bank. The ES&A staff were fearful of the likely consequences of union, while in the event the staff of the ANZ Bank were resentful of what they saw as unwarranted concessions to the smaller organisation’.

The merged ANZ Banking Group Ltd began trading on 1 October 1970, 50 years ago.

We received a large number of responses to our request for members to send us anecdotes and experiences from the time of the Merger. Some of these were included in the September Newsletter, more are now included below, and we will include the remainder in November and December. Thank you all for your contributions.

Member stories September

Members stories October

Peter Alexander full story

Members stories November

Members stories December

The latest in our series of IT History stories has been written by Dick Milnthorpe. Dick is a member of ANZROC though now retired back in the UK. Dick covers the early days of Computer processing in London plus his role in the automation of North America and India. Dick also worked in Australia in the early 1980's and played a lead role in the roll out of branch automation under Derek Gall.

https://www.anzroc.com.au/ima…/stories/…/londonithistory.pdf

A series of stories relating to ANZ Bank History.

https://news.anz.com/anzhistory…