Kiwibank declares NZD 36.8 million profits
Kiwibank has announced an after-tax profit of NZD 36.8 million for the 12 months ended 30 June 2008. Chief Executive Sam Knowles described the result as “very satisfactory in a challenging economic environment”.
The profit for the previous year (2007), has been restated under new accounting procedures adopted by banks, from NZD 25.5 million to NZD 30.9 million.
Mr Knowles said in the last year:
Loans and advances increased 57 per cent from NZD 3.6 billion to NZD 5.6 billion
Retail deposits increased 46 per cent from NZD 3.3 billion to NZD 4.8 billion
Mr Knowles said the continued growth in loans and deposits was an excellent result for the bank. “Our very strong deposit growth enabled the bank to be largely self-funded for residential and small business loans. This reduced the bank’s exposure to the more expensive and volatile wholesale markets and enabled us to maintain competitive home loan rates. In fact the bank continually led the market down in loan interest rates, but still maintained some of the best term deposit and online call rates available.”
The increase in the loan portfolio included the acquisition of the AMP home loan portfolio of NZD 700 million.
He singled out small to medium business banking as one of the key strengths in the continued improved performance by the bank. “We clearly have struck a chord with small businesses in New Zealand. They like our rates and they like our service. We are getting very solid growth in our business-banking portfolio, but at a level that we can ensure we maintain excellent service.”
1 USD = 1.42672 NZD
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