Westpac profit up 13%; Advisers account for more loans

In the year ended September 30, the mortgage book grew by $3.23 billion to $70.7 billion, up from the $1.94 billion growth the previous year.

Westpac’s Australian parent’s slides showed the percentage of the overall mortgage book originated by advisers at Sept 30 rose from 53.8% to 56.7%  a year earlier.

In May, chief executive Catherine McGrath said advisers had accounted for 64% of new loans in the six months ended March.

The NZ subsidiary’s statutory net profit for the year ended Sept 30 fell 2% to $1.2 billion while the Australian parent reported a 1% drop in net profit to A$6.92 billion.

The drop in New Zealand profit was despite the bank writing back $44 million in previous-year charges against profit for bad debts, which McGrath said reflected customers coping better than expected with tough economic conditions.

The charges against profit for bad debts the previous year had been $27 million, meaning the swing in bad debts charges was $71 million.
Westpac’s net interest margin rose by 15 basis points to 2.32% from the previous year.

McGrath said increased lending to households and businesses and more efficient funding from household deposits had helped support the results.

“This result positions us well to support customers through what we think will be an economic upturn oer the coming year and we are investing heavily in our business to deliver better services for customers and communities,” McGrath said.

“We know the economy struggled through most of 2025 and households and businesses are still grappling with high costs. However, our data suggests some of those pressures are now easing.”

Lower interest rates are now flowing through to customers and in the last week of October, customers were rolling off an average fixed home loan rate of 5.95%.

“A customer with a $300,000 loan on a 15-year term rolling off that rate onto our current one-year special of 4.49% would have an extra $230 a month in the back pocket,” she said.

A higher proportion of Westpac’s home loan customers are at least three months ahead on their repayments than six months ago while the average customer is nearly 11 months ahead on repayments.

Customers being supported by Westpac’s financial hardship team are also down.

The parent’s slides showed customers paying interest only fell to 14.7% of the book from 15.5% a year earlier while those whose repayments were more than 90 days past due fell to 0.46% of the portfolio from 0.49%.