'CEO always my aim': Smith

"What do you like about banking and running a bank?"

This was Banking Day's opening question to outgoing ANZ CEO Mike Smith yesterday.

Smith said he always knew that was what he wanted to do.

"The first moment I joined the bank actually. I walk into the office in London - HSBC - and there was something about it.

"I felt comfortable. I knew I was being completely lucky, purely fortuitous.

"I always thought that the best job in the bank was running it, so that was always my aim.

Asked to reflect on the largest losses handled in his career at HSBC and ANZ Smith led off with Argentina, an affray that saw him shot.

"The bank lost US$1 billion," he smiled.

"It doesn't sound much now, but at the time it was a huge amount of money. We got a lot of that back later," he said, also listing a parade of global banking names taking the same level of losses as HSBC.

At ANZ it was the credit profile presented on arrival that most bothered him.

"When I arrived there were a lot of intermediated stuff, credit intermediation trades. Getting that off and making that work for us, because there was A$12 billion of that.

"That was quite scary."