ANZ providing lots of loose cash in Singapore
Date
November 12, 2012
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CBD
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Illustration: John Shakespeare.
MEET the automated teller machine that is the tip of the spear Mike Smith's ANZ is thrusting into Asia.
This humble and slightly grotty box occupies the best piece of ATM real estate in Asia, a location where there is an apparently endless stream of customers, both local and expatriate, hungry for cash and other transactions.
It sits on Singapore's main shopping drag, Orchard Road, on the ground floor of a commercial building that is by day home to a clutch of small retailers but at night comes alive as bars with names such as Bongo Bar and Crazy Horse open their doors.
The building is Orchard Towers, better known as the ''four floors of whores''.
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ANZ has certainly picked the right spot to chase high net-worth individuals - providing customers don't mind walking up escalators that appear not to have operated for quite some time.
Indeed, one of the escalators has been deconstructed, reduced to an impassable dusty mechanical skeleton that encourages plenty of close physical contact on the remaining escalator-turned-stairway.
Last Wednesday night at 11pm, when CBD's deep-cover operative visited, business was slow with employees outnumbering patrons - mostly male tourists and business people - in many of the disinfectant-scented bars.
But even on a sleepy weekday night, ANZ's ATM was doing a roaring trade spitting out Securency-manufactured plastic Singaporean dollars.
As CBD's correspondent looked on, a gentleman took full advantage of ANZ's obliging machine, no doubt to ensure he had enough cash to cover what were clearly his two daughters' taxi fares home.
The ATM also provides a fantastic opportunity for ANZ to advertise its presence in Asia to the customers of the Hilton, which is just across the road.
It has lit up the street outside the Orchard Towers with signage advertising the ATM - a sign that admittedly is slightly outshone by the one above it, a vast illuminated ad spruiking Naughty G (a delightful ''supplement drink for him and her'' that boasts ingredients including horny goat weed and the motto ''Work Hard Play Harder'').
Absent, however, is the endlessly looping video of CEO Smith that chats to customers at ANZ's second-best Asian ATM, the one next to the baby change room at Hong Kong International Airport.
ANZ: We live in your world, even if your world is a tired, run-down shopping mall full of prostitutes and tacky bars.
Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/business/...n-singapore-20121111-296cz.html#ixzz2C1PeEL3z
Date
November 12, 2012
Read later
CBD
View more articles from CBD
Pin ItEmail articlePrintReprints & permissions
Illustration: John Shakespeare.
MEET the automated teller machine that is the tip of the spear Mike Smith's ANZ is thrusting into Asia.
This humble and slightly grotty box occupies the best piece of ATM real estate in Asia, a location where there is an apparently endless stream of customers, both local and expatriate, hungry for cash and other transactions.
It sits on Singapore's main shopping drag, Orchard Road, on the ground floor of a commercial building that is by day home to a clutch of small retailers but at night comes alive as bars with names such as Bongo Bar and Crazy Horse open their doors.
The building is Orchard Towers, better known as the ''four floors of whores''.
Advertisement
ANZ has certainly picked the right spot to chase high net-worth individuals - providing customers don't mind walking up escalators that appear not to have operated for quite some time.
Indeed, one of the escalators has been deconstructed, reduced to an impassable dusty mechanical skeleton that encourages plenty of close physical contact on the remaining escalator-turned-stairway.
Last Wednesday night at 11pm, when CBD's deep-cover operative visited, business was slow with employees outnumbering patrons - mostly male tourists and business people - in many of the disinfectant-scented bars.
But even on a sleepy weekday night, ANZ's ATM was doing a roaring trade spitting out Securency-manufactured plastic Singaporean dollars.
As CBD's correspondent looked on, a gentleman took full advantage of ANZ's obliging machine, no doubt to ensure he had enough cash to cover what were clearly his two daughters' taxi fares home.
The ATM also provides a fantastic opportunity for ANZ to advertise its presence in Asia to the customers of the Hilton, which is just across the road.
It has lit up the street outside the Orchard Towers with signage advertising the ATM - a sign that admittedly is slightly outshone by the one above it, a vast illuminated ad spruiking Naughty G (a delightful ''supplement drink for him and her'' that boasts ingredients including horny goat weed and the motto ''Work Hard Play Harder'').
Absent, however, is the endlessly looping video of CEO Smith that chats to customers at ANZ's second-best Asian ATM, the one next to the baby change room at Hong Kong International Airport.
ANZ: We live in your world, even if your world is a tired, run-down shopping mall full of prostitutes and tacky bars.
Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/business/...n-singapore-20121111-296cz.html#ixzz2C1PeEL3z
