TSB & ANZ lift profits but lose mortgage market share

New Zealand’s largest and smallest home-lending banks both increased profits sharply in the December quarter, although both lost ground in the mortgage market.

Friday, March 2nd 2007, 6:13AM

by Jenny Ruth

ANZ/National Bank’s net profit jumped 27.7% to $350 million in the quarter, boosted by a number of one-off items including the sale of the FleetPartners business.

The bank says underlying profit before provisions was up 8% to $423 million and revenue also grew 8%.

The bank’s mortgage book grew $1.33 billion to $44.86 billion in the three months but its market share slipped to 34.6% compared with 34.8% at the end of September and 34.5% at the end of December 2005, using Reserve Bank figures as a proxy for the market.

TSB Bank’s net profit rose 14.7% to $8.63 million, bring its nine-months result to $26.7 million, an 11.3% increase on the same nine months a year earlier.

Its mortgage book grew $17 million to $1.61 billion in the latest quarter and compared with $1.49 billion in December 2005. That meant its market share fell to 1.24% in December 2006 from 1.28% in September and 1.3% in December 2005.

With the government-owned Kiwibank negotiating to buy about $720 million in AMP-originated residential mortgages from HSBC, HSBC is likely to become the smallest home-lending bank, displacing TSB at the bottom of the list.

TSB managing director Kevin Rimmington says despite the fall in market share, his bank’s growth in lending is at record levels but loans are also being continuously repaid – the figures in the bank’s quarterly disclosure documents are net figures.

He says TSB has had the lowest two-year fixed mortgage rate in the market for five or six months now, undercutting the Bank of New Zealand’s "unbeatable" campaign. While BNZ’s advertisements feature pigs, TSB’s show a smashed china pig with the slogan: "We’ve beaten the unbeatable … again."

Reserve Bank figures for January show mortgages written by registered banks rose $1.47 billion to $131.07 billion in the month. That’s up from the $1.32 billion increase in December and compares with $116.12 billion in December 2005.

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