Please note that as of August 2012, The Bank Investor site is no longer being updated. Australia and New Zealand's best analysis of the banking and finance industry can be found at Banking Day.
Article listings
Sudden shift in wholesale funding costs 
Banks will definitely pay a lot more for funds sourced from wholesale markets in 2012, a factor that will make the management of margins even more complex over this year.
Commonwealth Bank on Wednesday provided stark evidence of the leap (you would not call it a rise) in the cost of wholesale ... More
Big banks warn: funding cost pressures are real
Business conditions are weak, funding costs are rising and political pressure is an unwelcome distration from the business of running banks. These were the themes that dominated discussion at the annual general meetings of ANZ, National Australia Bank and Westpac last week.
Where leading bankers ... More
Takeover gives Bendigo and Adelaide business banking clout
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s acquisition of Bank of Cyprus Australia will give it access to a business banking distribution network in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.On Friday, Bendigo and Adelaide announced it had reached agreement with the Bank of Cyprus Group to acquire its ... More
What the analysts are saying: buy the yield
Bank stocks lost ground in 2011 but at least they traded above the market index, the S&P/ASX 200. Analysts and equity strategists are extremely cautious about the outlook for 2012 but they do like the high dividend yields that banks offer. Commonwealth Bank started the year around the $51 mark ... More
By John Kavanagh
Published on Thursday, 22 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, BOQ, Bendigo and Adelaide
Bendigo elevated, BOQ cut by S&P
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's sketched out some of the capital-raising prospects of several regional and niche banks in the course of publishing revised ratings on more Australian banks.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank finally received the upgrade to its credit rating that ... More
Small mortgage groups look for growth opportunities
When Tim Holmes addressed the shareholders of Homeloans Ltd at the company's annual general meeting, on 25 November 2011, he told them to expect consolidation in the "second tier of the non-bank" sector in 2012. Holmes has been chairman of Homeloans since 2003 and managing director since 2008, and ... More
Two banks seek control of home loan margins
The supposed nexus between the RBA's cash rate and the variable home loan rate paid by many borrowers may be broken from early 2012 if ANZ and also Bendigo and Adelaide Bank follow through on policies announced late last week.
ANZ on Thursday took the initiative and announced it will reprice home ... More
By Ian Rogers
Published on Monday, 12 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Bendigo and Adelaide, mortgages
What the analysts are saying: deposit competition heats up
Term deposit spreads, relative to wholesale rates, "turned against the banks" in October and November, according to Macquarie Research analysis. Macquarie analyst Michael Wiblin issued a note last week showing that, with a few exceptions, the Big Four banks, as well as Bank of Queensland and ... More
By John Kavanagh
Published on Monday, 12 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, BOQ, Bendigo and Adelaide, deposits
What the analysts are saying: wealth's year of change
Wealth management businesses, which contribute six to 10 per cent of the earnings of the big banks, face a number of costly adjustments to their businesses next year as a series of reforms take effect. Banks looking for a fillip from wealth management to make up for modest loan growth may be ... MoreNAB determined to keep growing home loan share
National Australia Bank is the one bank that has acquired meaningful extra market share in the home loan market over the last couple of years, with other major banks largely consolidating their positions after the windfall generated by the financial crisis of 2008.
NAB will keep its foot on the ... More
S&P downgrades may increase banks' cost of funds
Standard & Poor's late last week cut the long-term credit ratings of Australia's four major banks by one notch to AA- from AA. The downgrading was expected and in line with the review of country ratings released by S&P last month.
The ratings of each major bank's subsidiaries in New Zealand (ANZ ... More
By Ian Rogers
Published on Monday, 5 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, Macquarie Group
EzeATM chases its consolidation dream
EzeATM, a recently listed-listed ATM operator, is moving quickly to realise the ambitions of those behind the float of this ultra-niche provider in the automatic teller machine market. On Wednesday last week the company confirmed that it would buy the Australian ATM fleet of iCash ... More
By Ian Rogers
Published on Monday, 5 December, 2011
