Which bank is winning the lending race?

ASB Bank has significantly lifted mortgage lending in the March quarter after shrinking its book in the December quarter but its lending still isn't keeping pace with its market share.

But Kiwibank continues to punch far above its weight and ANZ appears to be aggressively chasing market share.

The Reserve Bank's financial strength dashboard for the March quarter shows ASB lent a net $380.7 million in the quarter after its mortgage book shrank by $312 million in the December quarter but it still accounted for just 14% of total new mortgage lending by registered banks in the March quarter.

For the year ended March, ASB's new mortgage lending grew a measly $46.7 million, accounting for just 0.4% of new bank mortgage lending in the 12 months.

ASB's market share of the bank mortgage market at March 31 was 20.9%, down from 21.7% at the end of 2022.

ASB had decided to stand back from the market with uncompetitive interest rate offerings after the chief executive of its owner, Matt Comyn of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, complained about how skinny margins on mortgage lending were in New Zealand.

Total new mortgage lending for the latest quarter was subdued at $2.73 billion compared with December's total of 3.67 billion and the September quarter's $3.08 billion.

Kiwibank lent $467.6 million on housing in the March quarter, 17.1% of total new bank lending on mortgages, and it lent almost $2 billion in the year ended March, accounting for 16.2% of total new bank mortgage lending.

Kiwibank's share of the market is just 7.5%, although it has risen from 7.1% on December 31, 2022.

Kiwibank has a long history of stepping up lending when any of the big four major banks step back from the market.

ANZ lent $802.9 million in the March quarter, down from $1.26 billion in the December quarter, and $4.75 billion in the year ended March.

Its new lending accounted for 29.4% of March quarter total bank mortgage lending and for 38.5% in the year ended March, and that took its share of the market to 30.5%.

Westpac pulled back a little but still lent slightly more of its market share at 20.6% of total new lending in the March quarter at $562 million, down from $874.4 million in the December quarter.

Westpac's market share at March 31 was 19% but in the year ended March its net new mortgage lending of $1.77 billion accounted for 14.3% of total new bank mortgage lending.

BNZ also pulled back a little with $412.5 million of net new mortgage lending, 15.1% of total new bank mortgage lending, but it lent nearly $2.4 billion in the year ended March, or 19.4% of total new bank mortgage lending.

BNZ's market share at March 31 was 16.7%.