Westpac corrects its deposit shortfall

One of the things Gail Kelly set about changing at Westpac in her early days at the bank was its poor performance in attracting deposits.

At the time, she said service levels needed fixing and incentives were skewed to selling loans.

Yesterday Kelly reported that the bank's performance in this area had picked up. Australian term deposits were up 74 per cent from $47.2 billion in March last year to $82.3 billion in the latest half, and at-call deposits were up 11 per cent from $118 to $130 billion over the same period.

Westpac's share of retail deposits in Australia rose from 19 to 21 per cent over the year to March and deposit inflow is running at 1.7 times system growth, based on RBA data, or 1.1 times system based on APRA data.

Share in other product areas remained steady. APRA data shows Westpac with a 25 per cent home loan share, unchanged over the year to March and with sales growing at 1.4 times system.

Credit card share was off a little, down 27 to 26 per cent. Business credit was steady at 17 per cent.