George Frazis finished up at Bank of Queensland yesterday, three years into his term as chief executive, after the board “formed a view that different leadership is now required”.
BOQ chair Patrick Allaway will act as executive chair will the board looks for a new CEO.
Allaway said in a statement yesterday: “George Frazis joined BOQ in September 2019 and has overseen a return to growth in all key channels across the bank, the successful acquisition and integration of ME Bank, as well as achieving strong progress in the bank’s technology transformation.
“However, the board has formed the view that different leadership is now required to ensure BOQ can continue to build a more resilient bank through future cycles.”
Frazis might feel hard done by. When the company released its 2020/21 results, it reported the first full year of growth in its mortgage book for seven years.
Growth came from all parts of the retail business – BOQ Housing, BOQ Specialist and Virgin Money – as a result of improved approval times and better service. Growth continued in 2021/22.
While he might have fixed the bank’s biggest problem, Frazis was reported to have a difficult relationship with Allaway.
In an article in the Australian Financial Review earlier this year, Allaway said he was disappointed that Frazis was on the interview panel for a head of business banking and did not disclose a personal relationship with the successful candidate. That candidate, Peter Sarantzouklis, did not make it past his probationary period.
Allaway also commented about Frazis’s “unusual working style”, such as odd hours, his “perceived extravagance of expenses” and the “inappropriate” decision to have a private bathroom built for his Sydney office.
And there have been a few operational problems that suggest Frazis is not as strong on compliance as he needs to be. In July the ACCC fined BOQ for “failing to provide a service enabling customers’ data to be shared” under Consumer Data Right rules.
It was the first, and still the only, infringement notice the ACCC has issued for an alleged breach of the CDR rules.
Frazis has also had his problems winning over investors. In April, Macquarie Securities downgraded the bank from “outperform” to “neutral”, saying it has less capacity to benefit from rising rates than other banks.
Macquarie said BOQ has a relatively weak deposit franchise that results in it paying more for deposits than other banks.
Allaway said that under his interim leadership, the bank will have four key areas of focus: strengthening financial and non-financial risk management; building a cloud-based digital bank; sharpening focus on simplification, productivity and disciplined execution; and “embedding our purpose and values in everything we do”.
None of this represents a significant change of direction. Frazis was already well advanced with a major project to digitise the banks’ services.