Bank of Melbourne achieved nine out of ten internal targets set by Westpac for the first 12 months of operations of the brand in Victoria the chair of the bank's board, Lindsay Maxsted, told the
Financial Review.
Some of those targets included the number of new customers, products per customer, deposits, loans and revenue growth. Maxsted did, though, spell out the any actual targets.
Maxsted told the newspaper that while it was "too early to crow …. You're just seeing the start of the multi-brand piece work."
"It's starting to come through. It's a really stark example of how multi-branding works."
Maxsted said the Westpac board was very happy with Bank of Melbourne's progress, particularly on deposits.
"As people cotton on to the war for deposits and the move away from unsecured lending and mortgage lending, more to the liabilities side of the balance sheet, Bank of Melbourne will be a really important part of that," Maxsted said.
Maxsted also responded to questions on the succession to Westpac's chief executive Gail Kelly, who began work with the bank in early 2008.
In a separate
AFR article Maxsted said Kelly would remain at the helm for "some years". The AFR also reported that Maxsted said it would be "dangerous" to identify Brian Hartzer - the banks incoming head of financial services - as Kelly's eventual successor.
Hartzer recently joined the bank from Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK. He previously led ANZ's Australian business.
"To attract him back in [to Australia] he would have a view that he is a serious candidate when we're ready for CEO succession, which is some years away," Maxsted told the newspaper.
"But there are absolutely no promises or guarantees."
"It's very dangerous to get down to one or two candidates until you really have decided you're in replacement mode," Mr Maxsted said.
"That's six months before you actually do the changeover."