by Jenny Ruth
Because its latest results show advisers originated 42.9% of its home loans in the six months ended March, up from 42% in the same six months a year earlier.
BNZ’s homeloan book grew 6.6% to $66.2 billion in the latest six months, up from $62.1 billion a year earlier with advisers having originated 40% of the book at March 31, up from 38.9% a year earlier.
NAB is also trying to reduce its reliance on advisers and its results showed its own proprietarily originated home loans rose to 47.7% of all drawdowns in the latest six months from 41.4% in the six months ended September and 35.3% in the six months ended September 2023.
Advisers still remain the dominant channel at NAB, accounting for 53.8% of total loans on the books at March 2026.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which owns ASB, has claimed proprietary home loans are more profitable than loans originated by advisers.
Likely reflecting BNZ’s more accommodating attitude towards businesses, home loans to investors accounted for 35.3% of the book at March 31 compared with 33.8% a year earlier.
BNZ has overtaken ANZ Bank New Zealand as the nation’s largest business bank and ANZ’s results on Friday showed housing loans to investors accounted for only 22% of its mortgage book.
BNZ’s statutory net profit for the six months ended March 31 fell nearly 38% to $494 million, reflecting a $253 million write-down of its capitalised software assets.
Excluding the write-down, BNZ’s net profit was down $48 million to $747 million.
BNZ’s charges against profit for bad loans of $19 million for the latest six months compared with the year-earlier write-back of $28 million.
The percentage of the book on fixed rates rose to 87% at March 31 from 86.2% a year earlier.
BNZ chief executive Dan Huggins (pictured) said the result largely reflects the NZ economy before the war against Iran began.
“The first half of the year saw many NZ businesses anticipating a steady return to economic growth,” with both housing and business lending increasing, Huggins said.
But “the Middle East conflict has eroded that positive sentiment and our customers have once again had to adjust quickly,” he said.
“New Zealanders have shown resilience in recent years, but the impact of higher fuel prices on households and businesses has seen a change in sentiment from growing confidence to one of caution.”
BNZ’s net interest margin fell four basis points to 2.35% compared with a year earlier.
NAB’s slides showed BNZ’s interest-only home loans rose to 18.5% of the book from 18.3% a year earlier, but down from 18.6% at Sept 30.
Huggins said BNZ is in a solid position and committed to supporting its customers.
He said the bank’s home loan switch product, designed to make it easier for people to switch from another bank to BNZ, “is expected to save customers millions of dollars in estimated legal fees over the next two years.”
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