The recent announcement that Westpac is “reviewing” ownership of its New Zealand business caused some speculation the decision might be due to the bank’s lower profitability. But this would be unlikely grounds for a sale, and was more a consequence of COVID-19’s impact than anything. In fact, Westpac’s New Zealand profits should be considerably higher this year — close to NZ$1 billion, as opposed to the $550 million in the previous year (to September 30 2020). Based on past experience, a sale price of $10 billion (AU$9 billion) would not be unreasonable, possibly even higher. More likely, the proposed sale is due to the complex and conflicting regulatory requirements of the Australian and New Zealand banking supervisors. We saw this in the decision of the New Zealand supervisor, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), to require banks to be positioned for “open bank resolution” (OBR).