‘Watch, worry and wait’: ANZ boss Antonia Watson warns about economic impact of fuel crisis
Tuesday, 5 May 2026
SINGAPORE | ANZ Bank boss Antonia Watson has warned that the full impact of fuel price rises arising from the war in Iran are yet to be seen.
Speaking on the sideline of an ANZ roundtable on supply chains held in the bank’s sumptuous Singapore offices, Watson said that while ANZ customers had been building up their buffers as a result of interest rate drops over the past 18 months, for the bank it was a case of “watch, worry and wait”.
“In terms of our outlook right now, in terms of our ANZ New Zealand customer base, we aren't seeing enormous stress yet, and the yet is the key word I think. So definitely there's pressure on prices,” Watson said.
“The longer this goes on, the more that this will be the case.”
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ANZ was one of the companies that sent people to Singapore to participate in the first Singapore-New Zealand Leadership Forum, which was held in the city on Monday.
The roundtable, which brought together a number of large firms, saw the prime minister challenge the executives present ‒ which included people from ANZ, Ports of Auckland, Swire, Aon and Toll Holdings ‒ to think about supply chain issues in New Zealand both in the short term in the wake of the war, and over the longer term.
“What I'm interested in today is just getting a sense of two things, obviously, the response to the crisis, but I think we've also got some structural challenges in the logistics ports configuration set-up that we have in New Zealand,” Luxon said.
“So I'm interested in talking about some of those longer term structural challenges that we've got,” he said in public remarks at the top of the closed-door session with CEOs and government officials.
He also said he wanted to know what the Government could do to help.
“I want free and frank conversation, because I think we've got to talk about the crisis with respect to costs and logistics and what we're seeing there. If there are any settings changes we need to make, let's talk about that,” he said.
ANZ’s Watson said that while businesses have been “building up buffers as interest rates came down, they have been looking at plan Bs, which I think is really positive.”
She also praised what she called a “let's get on with it attitude”.
But she said that while some businesses can pass on costs to consumers, the effects on those that could not were being closely monitored.
“You've got small businesses, you know, say you're installing swimming pools, and PVC piping has gone up significantly, and you've got a fixed contract with the person you're putting in the swimming pool for ‒ that has a significant impact on your business.
“We can see in our spend numbers, 30% more on petrol in March, less on discretionary items. So there are real impacts flowing through … the sooner this crisis is over, the better.
“But equally, the more we can do to make ourselves more diverse in terms of who our partners are globally, partnerships like we've just announced with Singapore, that's great,” she said.