Westpac has appointed Alexandra Holcomb as its chief risk officer. She replaces Greg Targett, who is retiring after five years in the job and 35 years in banking. Holcomb left consultant Booz Allen & Hamilton to join Westpac in 1996. She has held executive positions in Westpac Institutional Bank, group strategy and the mergers and acquisitions team. Her current role is general manager, global transactional services. Moody's Investors Service says the Australian auto ABS performance was stable in March compared with February, with delinquencies in excess of 30 days remaining at 1.1 per cent. Australian prime RMBS performance improved in March over February, with delinquencies in excess of 30 days decreasing to 1.4 per cent from 1.5 per cent. The prime RMBS 60-day-plus delinquency rate in March stood at 0.7 per cent, which compares favourably with other markets such the US (over 5 per cent). Record demand for investment mortgages in May saw AFG, Australia's largest mortgage broker, process "an unprecedented" A$4.2 billion in mortgages last month, 17 per cent higher than for May 2013. Investor activity last month accounted for a record 49 per cent of new home loans processed by AFG's brokers in NSW, Victoria (40 per cent) and Queensland (39 per cent). First home buyer activity across the country held steady at 10 per cent, although a wide disparity remains between states where grants are provided for first home buyers, such as WA (22 per cent of all new home loans) and states without FHB grants, such as NSW (3.5 per cent). According to Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report for the March 2014 quarter a slight improvement was recorded, with the proportion of income required to meet loan repayments decreasing 0.2 percentage points to 30.6 per cent over the quarter to December 2013. Compared to the same quarter of 2013, affordability improved more noticeably, with the proportion of household income needed dropping by 1.5 percentage points. On the rental side, the proportion of family income needed to meet rent payments has increased slightly from 25.4 per cent in the December 2013 quarter to 25.7 per cent. ANZ leads Thomson Reuters' Asia Pacific (excluding Japan, including Australasia) mandated loan arranger league table for the five months to the end of May 2014 and is second on the bookrunners' league table. In the region, YTD 2014 loan volume has reached US$137.5 billion via 425 deals. ANZ's share of the action (7.14 per cent) was generated from arranging 98 syndicated or club loans for the equivalent of US$9.82 billion across all international currencies, RMB and New Taiwan dollars. The Reserve Bank of Australia is seeking input from small and medium-sized enterprises and councils to better understand the costs borne by them in accepting different forms of payments from customers. The RBA has developed a short online survey for members of small business associations who sell directly to the public. It is being run in conjunction with surveys of larger businesses and financial institutions