Leverage a carrot to Goldfields M&A

Western Australian ADI minnow Goldfields Money will work to a thinner target for its capital base, the firm explained on Friday.

The board lowered its target capital ratio to 17 per cent from 18 per cent. Goldfields reported a capital ratio of 19.2 per cent in the year to June 2015.

The year was one of speedy loan growth, up 23 per cent to A$146 million.

The net profit fell 26 per cent to A$140,000. The inevitable "normalised profit" jumped 50 per cent to A$285,000.

The latter figures require the waste of more than $200,000 on a strategic IT project to be disregarded.

The net interest margin fell 17 basis points to 1.87 per cent.

Goldfields listed M&A as one of three "key strategic objectives for the next three years."

Widening the white-label offering and developing the brand were the other two.

Goldfields is yet to make much progress on plans to work closely with one of its key shareholders, Pioneer Credit, but is making strides with FirstMac as a source of deposits and loan product. FirstMac is also the recipient of Goldfields deposits in the High Livez fund.