There was talk about Asia as the engine room of the world economy, talk of trade flows between Australia and Asia and talk of the virtue, to shareholders, of owning a piece of a banking business set to ride the wave of Asian prosperity.There was little mention by ANZ managing director Mike Smith and his Asian CEO Alex Thursby of the merit of the actual businesses ANZ agreed to buy, and the franchise value of those, such as the 1.3 million customers in Taiwan, 450,000 customers in Indonesia and 350,000 in Singapore.Each RBS retail and commercial banking franchise in these countries operates in a congested market in which other foreign banks are typically better established, not to mention the reach of the major domestic suppliers.ANZ did not share any of its analysis of the history of these businesses in their markets. So is market share in key customer segments rising or falling? Nor did they share any financial history, but rather a aggregated, six-country snapshot of the recent financial position.ANZ will have to rebrand the former ABN Amro businesses in these markets for a second time in only a few years, and also work out how to genuinely achieve viable, affordable operating platforms that share software and services, both across ANZ's Asian businesses and ideally shared to some extent also with Australia and New Zealand.There was talk of shared services, of course, though less talk of the budget, and admittedly the investment in improved operating models for ANZ's existing Asian businesses has been on the agenda of the bank's new management for a year or two.   Of the acquired RBS businesses it is probably that in Indonesia that fits most neatly with ANZ's stated strategy, picking up a network of 20 branches to fit alongside ANZ Panin's own embryonic (but fast growing) network.ANZ still trails HSBC, Citibank and DBS for foreign bank reach in Indonesia (and with the latter in some ways a local pioneer of the "super regional" strategy that ANZ is seeking to develop in east and south Asia).The mild surprise of the ANZ purchase of the former ABN Amro assets is the bank's willingness to buy the business in Taiwan.While ANZ has a stated strategy of becoming a top four foreign bank in greater China, Taiwan did not feature much in the last, detailed briefing by ANZ on its Asian strategy in June 2008.ANZ had to pass up the option to buy the RBS banking business in China, with the premium too much for the bank.There was also no viable way for ANZ to buy the RBS business in India due to regulatory hurdles, so the strategic goal of becoming a top four foreign bank in India, as in China, will have to be pursued organically, and very slowly.