ASB made up for lost time with mortgage lending surge in Sept ...

ASB Bank seemed to be trying to make up previous quarters' mortgage market share losses in the September quarter while the government's Kiwibank was the second biggest lender in the latest three months.

ASB accounted for 32.3% of new mortgage lending in the September quarter with nearly $1.07 billion of net new lending, but its annual lending of $1.72 billion accounted for just 13.3% of total bank new mortgage lending, according to the Reserve Bank's bank financial strength dashboard data.

As TMM has reported previously, Matt Comyn, chief executive of ASB's parent, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, had complained last year about pressure on margins, particularly in the New Zealand market and it was clear that ASB hadn't been offering competitive mortgage rates.

Clearly, that's changed markedly and its surge in new lending in the latest quarter trimmed its annual market share loss to just 0.3 percentage points – it held 21% of the market at Sept 30, down from 21.3% a year earlier.

Kiwibank has been lending above its market share for some time and it lent $611.5 million in net new mortgages in the September quarter or nearly 18.5% of total new lending, taking its market share to nearly 7.7% at Sept 30 from below 7.3% a year earlier.

It lent $2.45 billion in the year ended September, making it the second largest mortgage lender in the year as well.

For the year ended September, the largest bank, ANZ Bank NZ, was the largest lender with $3.57 billion in net new mortgages but at 27.4% of total new lending, that was below its market share of 30.3%. It's new lending of $573.5 million in the September quarter accounted for just 17.3% of total new lending.

Bank of New Zealand grew its market share in the latest year with net new lending of $2.36 billion, or 18.1% of total new lending, taking its market share to 16.76% at Sept 30 from 16.71% a year earlier. BNZ's new lending in the September quarter of $512.9 million was 15.5% of new lending in the quarter.

The biggest market share loser through the year was Westpac, which accounted for $258.2 million of net new lending in the quarter, just 7.8% of the total, while its lending for the year of $1.94 billion accounted for 14.9% of total new lending.

That took Westpac's market share to 18.8% at Sept 30, down from 18.96% a year earlier.

Tags: ASB

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