Westpac Banking Corporation Analysis

Overview

Westpac has been a proud part of New Zealand history and community since 1861. Beginning life as The Bank of New South Wales, WBC changed their name to Westpac in 1982. Over time the bank has grown stronger with the addition of the Commercial Bank of Australia and TrustBank. After 145 years in New Zealand, the Bank's local identity was formally strengthened by the launch of Westpac New Zealand Limited in 2006.

Today, Westpac has over 1.3 million customers. Westpac operates two banks in New Zealand: Westpac New Zealand Limited, a New Zealand subsidiary, and Westpac Banking Corporation (NZ Division), a branch of Westpac Banking Corporation.

Westpac New Zealand Limited provides a full range of financial services for retail and business banking, including home and business lending. Westpac has over 5,500 staff, 196 branches and nearly 500 ATMs nationwide, as well as phone assist call centres and 24-hour phone banking services. The Online Banking service was launched in April 2000 and now has over 566,000 registered users (September 2006).

Westpac is also an award winning provider of banking services to small to medium business and is the banker of the New Zealand government.

Westpac completed its merger with St.George Bank by way of scheme of arrangement. The merger, was approved by holders of St.George ordinary shares on 13 November 2008 and subsequently approved by the Federal Court of Australia on 17 November 2008. On 1 March 2010 Westpac and St.George commenced operating as a single authorised deposit-taking institution. In conjunction, the legal entity, St.George Bank Limited was deregistered and Westpac became its successor in law.

The 5 key divisions of Westpac including: Consumer Bank, Business Bank, BT Financial Group, Westpac Institutional Bank and Westpac New Zealand. Through these 5 divisions the company serve over 13 million customers.

Performance

The following information was extracted from Westpac Banking Corporation Limited's half year results released on 06 May 2024:

Pre-provision profit was $5,195 million, an increase of 5% on the prior period. Excluding Notable Items, pre-provision profit was flat at $5,421 million driven by a 1% increase in net operating income and a 3% increase in operating expenses.

Net interest income decreased 1% to $9,127 million. Excluding Notable Items, net interest income increased 2% to $9,351 million reflecting disciplined management of price, margin and volume. The slight contraction in net interest margin (NIM) was partly offset by the 2% increase in average interest-earning assets. Growth in average interest-earning assets was driven by increases in owner occupied mortgages, and loans to business and institutional customers.

NIM was 1.89% and comprised:

– Core NIM of 1.80%, which contracted by 3 basis points from tighter loan spreads due to lending competition and a narrowing of deposit spreads from both a mix shift towards lower spread savings and term deposits and price competition. Higher earnings on capital and hedged deposits were a benefit;

–Treasury and Markets income of 14 basis points, up 3 basis points; and

–Notable Items, related to accounting for hedges, which reduced NIM by 5 basis points.

Non-interest income of $1,463 million was 2% higher. Excluding Notable Items, non-interest income was flat at $1,465 million.

Operating expenses of $5,395 million decreased 5% due to Notable Items in Second Half 2023. Excluding these items, operating expenses increased by 3% due to higher software amortisation expenses and higher technology operating and related third-party vendor costs. Cost Reset actions, particularly fewer non-customer facing roles and reduced property footprint, provided a partial offset.