Briefs: Westpac to lauch hybrid, ANZ moves further into India, Money3 CEO retires

Westpac Banking Corporation is set to become the third major Australian bank to raise hybrid capital this year with a $750 million offer to be launched as early as next Monday, according to the AFR's Street Talk column. The ASX-listed offer will raise around $750 million and be marketed at a margin of less than 400 basis points over the bank bill swap rate. Advisers on the hybrid raising are understood to include UBS, JP Morgan, Morgans, Ord Minnett, Westpac, CBA, ANZ and NAB.
ANZ Banking Group has opened a new branch in Gurgaon, North India. This continues ANZ's push back into the emerging market after selling Grindlays Bank to Standard Chartered in 2000. It adds to ANZ's existing branch presence in Mumbai and follows the opening earlier this week of EcoWorld, a new state-of-the-art operations, technology and shared services hub in Bengaluru. ANZ CEO India, Sanjeev Bajaj, said the bank also had regulatory approval to open its first rural branch, slated for "outer Bengaluru" in 2016.
Long-serving chief executive of lender Money3, Rob Bryant, retired yesterday. Bryant started the business as a storefront operation in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote in 2000 and took the company to an ASX listing in 2006. In recent years Bryant succeeded in transforming the business from a specialist short-term lender to consumers with poor credit records to a more diversified finance operation. Money3 chief operating officer Scott Baldwin has been appointed acting CEO.