ANZ yesterday brushed away one of the stranger ideas to circulate in Australian investment circles over the last six weeks, namely the notion that banks could be considered to have surplus capital and might even give some of it back.Asked by one analyst at the investor briefing, whether he wanted to start releasing that capital either by deploying it or by eventually releasing some of it, the ANZ CEO, Mike Smith, said: "I'm very happy to deploy it."We have the capability to grow the balance sheet now, either organically or through acquisition, and we will look for opportunities. "I think the opportunities that we've taken so far have been somewhat unique off the back of the global financial crisis, you know, that we have been able to do two deals at the bottom of the market."ANZ is buying ING out of the ING Australia joint venture and is also buying a number of Asian banking assets off RBS."I think the global financial crisis is going to create two or three other seismic shocks to the banking system in Europe and US," Smith said."We've seen the announcement with ING earlier this week, under European regulators really insisting that, you know, things change, and I think there will be further opportunities."In other words ANZ needs its surplus capital. (The bank puts its tier one capital ratio at 9.5 per cent, allowing for the planned takeovers, and says this would be a ratio of 11.9 per cent under the rules used in Britain.)"The other issue of course," Smith reminded his audience, "is the regulatory environment. We don't know where that's going. "We said that our range is 7.5 to eight per cent and we still stick to that, but I can guarantee you that regulators will not say that we need less capital."