Comment: Esanda options aplenty for ANZ

Ditching Esanda and detaching its product set from the bank's business product offering may seem an odd choice for ANZ to be making.

The mostly traditional asset-based (and less often cash flow) loans promoted by Esanda are still a mainstay of working capital finance for many enterprises.

The twin pressures on manufacturing and resources is no doubt thinning out a target market ANZ sees as disposable.

ANZ's standings in business banking have been challenged lately, with Westpac earning top marks in DBM's recent surveys, so ANZ will need to move carefully.

If Esanda is for sale at all, that is. After all, talk of the prospect of ANZ selling its finance company is a perennial of industry speculation.

GE's sale of GE Capital in Australia might be a catalyst.

The consortia forming for GE may well be able to find funding for a tilt at Esanda instead - and a chance to revive a languid non-bank sector.

Or ANZ may need the capital - David Murray's panel, for one, insists they do.

There may simply be better options for the use of Esanda's capital - in Asia, obviously - and it is nothing more than a portfolio balancing exercise informed by a value matrix.

If the latter, the choices may be bright inside ANZ.