Westpac accelerated the pace of digitisation in its retail banking business during the 2020/21 financial year, closing a large number of branches and doing more business online. The impact of these changes, as reflected in customer numbers, is mixed.
Australian branch numbers fell by 80 to 851 over the year to the end of September, while New Zealand branch numbers fell by 18 to 116.
At the same time, the number of digitally active customers rose 3 per cent to 5.2 million and the proportion of product sales via computer or mobile app rose from 42 per cent to 45 per cent.
The bank launched a new app, which it said is faster and has more capabilities and which provides a way of accessing fully digital debit and credit “cards”.
It has launched a digital mortgage origination platform, which has been trialled successfully and will be rolled out to brokers this financial year. In 2020/21, 71 per cent of loan applications were auto-decisioned, compared with 54 per cent in 2019/20.
The new platform has helped reduce approval times; the bank is claiming an average of 9.6 days for direct sales and 11.7 days for broker originated sales, although there are surveys that say the bank’s approval times are longer.
The bank’s Spend & Save account, which offers high savings rates for people aged 18 to 29, has been a success, with account numbers growing from 37,000 to 118,000 over the year. The bank claims its main financial institution share among millennials has grown from 12.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent since the beginning of 2020.
Australian customer numbers grew from 11.2 million to 11.3 million over the year.
However, total customer numbers, including New Zealand and “other”, fell from 14.1 million to 13.9 million over the same period.