Westpac, Consumer Financial Services briefing transcript, 30 July 2007
Andrew Bowden, head of investor relations: Good afternoon everyone and thanks for turning up to our next update for the year. This is the update for the Consumer Financial Services, the first separate update we've conducted for out Australian consumer business. The session today will involve presentations from Mike Pratt and three members of his senior team, and of course we'll have plenty of time for questions at the conclusion of the presentations. Before commencing the usual protocol, I see a couple of phones already out, switching them off, that would be great if you could all continue that process, as well as Blackberries. Please make sure you switch them off and not just put them onto silent mode, they do obviously interrupt with our electronics and can disrupt the people who are listening in on the webcast and on the conference call.First, but let me introduce Mike Pratt to you all. Many of you will have known him from a long and distinguished career in banking. In fact Mike has been in retail banking for over 35 years, in customer facing, corporate and executive management roles. Having worked his way up from grass roots retail banking, Mike has been responsible for some of the largest retail franchises in both Australia and New Zealand. Previously worked for National Australia Bank, ran the BNZ franchises as well as the Australian financial services business. Mike joined Westpac in 2002. He first commenced as the head of New Zealand and the Pacific operations, he then moved to business and consumer banking. Now that business, consumer banking business, was responsible for about half of Westpac's total earnings and in, I think in a rough calculation, delivered about 12% cash earnings growth over Mike's reign.Mike is currently the group executive of consumer financial services which is responsible for the majority of Westpac's customer base, its people and certainly its distribution infrastructure. So without further hesitation let me introduce Mike to the lectern. Mike Pratt, group executive of consumer financial services: Thank you Andrew and good afternoon everybody and welcome. It's great to have you with us this afternoon and share an update with you on Consumer Financial Services.When I read a lot of the papers that you write and also media commentary, it must be very difficult, I think, from the outside to really see what does differentiate each of the major retail banks. When you hear many of us talk about our bank, you hear us all talk about branches, about distribution, about brand, about people and so on, and I'm sure many of those messages just roll over as very similar messages from each of us. Well today I want to talk to you about what is different about us. What really does set us apart, the Westpac retail bank, from the rest of the major retail banks and in fact others in this marketplace? What really does provide us with a competitive advantage? We call it simply our Integrated Sales Through Service