ANZ's institutional bank will concentrate its efforts on about 6000 key customers and half a dozen industry sectors to buttress measures to lift returns.Mark Whelan, the bank's head of institutional banking, used an interview yesterday with BlueNotes, ANZ's in-house news service, to refashion rhetoric and add colour to the strategy of the institutional bank.In May, at the bank's half-year results briefing, ANZ managing director Shayne Elliot framed the institutional strategy as one of "resetting the business aggressively, reducing the capital allocated. Not by business or geography but by looking at the capital allocated to customers."Whelan said the new strategy and business simplification was putting the division on track for returns "well above our cost of capital."He said ANZ was "focusing on the industries that create value for us, where we're very good - agri, natural resources, funds and banks, areas where we see some growth, [and including] health and technology." In a nod to a modernisation of the bank's past reach into Asia (and a wider market of global corporates) Whelan said "we want to sharpen our focus on our core customers … declutter our client base."As a result, risk weighted assets are in decline.ANZ "has around 6000 customers that create the most value," he said, a decline from a number he did not specify, but still 2000 greater than a corresponding estimate mentioned in 2014 by his predecessor."We're moving away from customers that don't want to pay for services," Whelan said."Customer lending is going to come down, but not at the pace we've seen; we see stability," Whelan said.Credit stress in institutional banking may be moderating."Credit quality is interesting… I think that's stabilising too," he said. "We haven't seen any significant new big issues, it's more working through the ones we have on the sheet," he said.