one direct scrapped by ANZ

ANZ confirmed over the weekend that one direct, a retail banking brand launched in 2006, is effectively being wound down.

The bank said it had around 10,000 customers with one direct branded products, which are largely home loans (the original product offering) and also savings accounts.

ANZ plans to promote an ANZ-branded "direct" banking alternative. Product and marketing initiatives under this channel are likely later this year.

Efforts by banks big and small in Australia to establish a secondary consumer brand have all petered out with disappointing returns.

ANZ's managing director retail distribution, Louis Hawke, worked at Advance Bank when it tried, and quickly abandoned, one of the first of these; a secondary home loan brand known as Direct One in the mid 1990s.

Commonwealth Bank wound down the Homepath brand last year, having made little impact after nine years.

National Australia Bank is the current enthusiast for this occasional fashion, having introduced the UBank brand a year ago.

UBank offered a term deposit as its only product at launch and, as of two months ago, an at-call savings account (which remains the market leader at 5.11 per cent, even though NAB has not lifted this interest rate in line with the rate cycle this month).