Latest / Best of Business / Catherine McGrath: Westpac CEO on the bank's profit growing by 10 percent

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Catherine McGrath: Westpac CEO on the bank's profit growing by 10 percent · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: West PACs a net profit has jumped ten percent for
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  Speaker 2: the first half of the year for the company's new
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand arm. The interest rates have been coming down, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: but the bank's margins on interest rates have gone up slightly,
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  Speaker 2: up zero point one six percent compared to the same
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  Speaker 2: period last year. In Australia, the margins actually declined. West
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  Speaker 2: Pac CEO is Katherine Mcgrathey.
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  Speaker 3: Catherine, Hi here, that great to be back.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, thank you very much for your time. What's driving
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  Speaker 2: your profit up?
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  Speaker 3: So if you look at it versus the previous period, yes,
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  Speaker 3: it has gone up about ten percent in that period
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  Speaker 3: of time, But if you look at it over the
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  Speaker 3: past six months, our net profit has actually gone down
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  Speaker 3: by nine percent, and that's reflecting revenues have been flat,
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  Speaker 3: particularly with strong competition in the deposit market. Our costs
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  Speaker 3: have gone up and impairment has gone up as well.
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  Speaker 2: And so what's going on here with the margins rising
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand by going down in Australia. Why is that.
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  Speaker 1: So?
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  Speaker 3: One is it's important to compare apples with apples. The
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  Speaker 3: Australian business has a big international proponent to it which
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  Speaker 3: we don't have here. And so if I look at
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  Speaker 3: the relevant parts of the Australian business to New Zealand, one,
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  Speaker 3: our net interest margin is lower and then the reasons
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  Speaker 3: ours have edged up about three points over the past
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  Speaker 3: sax months. We've seen some better funding decisions have been taken,
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  Speaker 3: which has been really helpful.
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  Speaker 2: Interested in the fact that you've called up the social
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  Speaker 2: media companies on scams, what's what's what's got you upset?
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  Speaker 1: There?
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  Speaker 3: One of the things I'd love to see them do
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  Speaker 3: is to make sure that when they take advertising dollars
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  Speaker 3: for financial services ads, that they check that those ads
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  Speaker 3: are for genuine financial services providers. We know that investment
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  Speaker 3: scams are the ones that hurt keeps the most for
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  Speaker 3: an amount of money, and so we'd love them to
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  Speaker 3: use their great technology to verify that they're taking money
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  Speaker 3: from people who are actually financial sets organizations.
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  Speaker 2: They're under no obligation to do that, are they.
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 3: But if I can go through a piece of break
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  Speaker 3: to try and identify that a payment that you intend
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  Speaker 3: to make isn't really one that you want to make
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  Speaker 3: which is what we're doing in the New Zealand banking industry.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a hard ass to say that
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  Speaker 3: media platforms should make sure that they verify that who
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  Speaker 3: they're taking money from are advertising actually for financial services,
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  Speaker 3: not fake ads.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you, I mean I would say that that's because
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  Speaker 2: you've been pressured into it publicly, right, you actually care
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  Speaker 2: about what your customers think. They don't care, they have
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  Speaker 2: and they have no real there's no real impetus, right that.
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  Speaker 2: There's what I mean, what does it matter if if
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  Speaker 2: we think badly of them, we keep on using them, right,
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  Speaker 2: So there's nothing to there's nothing really to pressure them
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  Speaker 2: into this position?
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  Speaker 1: Is that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think the government is starting to do a
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  Speaker 3: good job at putting that pressure on and it's been
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  Speaker 3: really good to see that one of those platforms has
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  Speaker 3: done that, and so our witch regement is that Google
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  Speaker 3: has done that and they are verifying all as we
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  Speaker 3: would think it was great if all of those technology
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  Speaker 3: platforms demonstrate the same social responsibility to help people stop
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  Speaker 3: being scammed.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, I agree with you. Now listen, when are
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  Speaker 2: you guys going to be paying that penalty? Post the
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  Speaker 2: court case?
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  Speaker 3: So that will be in the process. Now. That's from
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  Speaker 3: a very historic issue. Not good when we offered something
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  Speaker 3: and we couldn't follow through with it in terms of
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  Speaker 3: our system. But we've worked very closely with the Financial
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  Speaker 3: Markets Authority. All of those customers have had any money
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  Speaker 3: paid back and it's not a forward looking issue from
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  Speaker 3: our perspective.
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  Speaker 2: Cool Catherine, Thank you so much for your time. Appreciated Katherinemcgrass,
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  Speaker 2: CEO of Voice.
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