Briefs: NAB to restrict foreigner loans, BT Financial restructures, Big Four set to ride out Brexit
The National Australia Bank has joined the other three Australian majors in restricting home loans lending to foreign property buyers without domestic incomes, the AFR reports. NAB is the last major bank to do so in recent months, after the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and Westpac progressively changed their rules over the last two months. Westpac's BT Financial Group has outlined a restructure at the state level of its private wealth operations, the AFR's Street Talk reports. The changes will see Justan Kitchener, head of lending, operations and service for private wealth, take the reins as head of NSW private wealth. He replaces Tim Smith and Dylan Harrad-Chantler, who were in charge of Westpac and St George private in NSW respectively. They are likely to be redeployed within the bank. Bank analysts have played down the chances of Brexit having a significant impact on Australia's big domestic banks through wholesale debt markets, which provide about a third of the Big Four's funding. This is despite movements in credit default swaps in recent days, which have widened 15 basis points to just over 90 bps, near elevated levels of earlier this year, reports the SMH. The majors have prepared for volatility, raising about A$77 billion up to the end of May, compared with $43 billion during the same period last year, noted Deutsche Bank analyst Andrew Triggs. A former Westpac financial planner is suing the bank, saying he has lost more than $800,000 and is at the risk of losing family home because his Westpac colleagues gave him bad advice about structured financial products, known as the Guaranteed Portfolio Service, the AFR reports. Daly and his wife ploughed $2 million into GPS on the eve of the global financial crisis. This case is the latest in a series of court cases Westpac has faced for misleading advice on structured products. Westpac said it will be defending this matter and denied it advised Daly to make this investment.