In comments on the liquidity crunch Michael Smith said he saw opportunities for ANZ from the repercussions of the crunch for banks in Europe and North America that are most affected."The banks here are very well poised and very well positioned to take advantage of some of this uncertainty in global markets."When you get a financial crisis there is always the unexpected. I think in this last one it was the collapse of the AAA mortgage backed market. It was the run on Northern Rock. It was the complete slide in the US dollar. I would have thought the US dollar would weaken but not at the rate it has."There are always these things that come from left field. I look at it as more of an opportunity than a problem."Yes, margins have increased and that has put upward pressure on rates."As for working through the repercussions of the crunch: "I think that's going to take many years."Money became almost the cheapest commodity around. The world was flush with money six months ago. And it was seeking assets and there wasn't sufficient quality assets."So what happened was assets were being manufactured off the back of others. And it's a bit like, if you remember, the last time I was in Australia, the heady days of the late 1980s."Some of the financing schemes to various holding companies were quite removed from the underlying cash blow business. When the world fell over there was a ripple effect."We haven't seen a significant strategic shift at the moment but I expect it will come. I would expect people to withdraw and … some to try and raise capital by trying to sell off those businesses."