Please note that as of August 2012, The Bank Investor site is no longer being updated.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.
Articles by John Kavanagh
John Kavanagh is the founding editor of The Bank Investor.
Weak asset growth, soft margins forecast for banks reporting interim earnings
Analysts are expecting those banks reporting December-half interim results - Commonwealth Bank and Bendigo & Adelaide Bank - to report subdued earnings growth. Macquarie Equities issued a report last week, saying it expects CBA's result to show soft margins, driven by competition for assets and ... More
Published on Monday, 6 February, 2012
Filed under CBA, Bendigo & Adelaide
What the analysts are saying: ANZ's Asian strategy will deliver growth
The retreat of European banks from Asia is good news for other banking groups in the region, particularly ANZ, according to Macquarie Equities. In a report issued last week, Macquarie said it expected ANZ to be able to increase the profitability of its Asian operation from the current level of ... More
Published on Monday, 30 January, 2012
Filed under ANZ
Job cuts: banks on a mission to rein in costs
During the big bank’s profit reporting season, in November, investors expressed concern about the fact that for some of the banks costs were rising faster than revenues. Investors and analysts made the point that banks were faced with a low-growth outlook and would need to be a lot more ... More
Published on Monday, 23 January, 2012
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, costs
Housing finance on an upward trend 
One piece of good news for banks and their investors over the past week is that the all-important housing finance market has recorded nine months of steady growth, making up the ground lost when it went into a sharp decline in late 2010 and early 2011.
There were 46,953 owner-occupied dwelling ... More
Published on Monday, 23 January, 2012
Filed under home lending
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
Published on Thursday, 22 December, 2011
Filed under Bendigo and Adelaide
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
Published on Thursday, 22 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, BOQ, Bendigo and Adelaide
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
Published on Monday, 12 December, 2011
Filed under small institutions, 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
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 ... More
Published on Monday, 5 December, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac
Fund manager view: branches need to be more productive
Perpetual portfolio manager Vince Pezzullo says the major banks need to make significant inroads into their costs. Pezzullo is a member of the Australian equity team at Perpetual and has oversight of financial institutions, and his view is that consumer and corporate de-leveraging is a multi-year ... More
Published on Monday, 28 November, 2011
Filed under ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, costs
Low growth for 2012 mortgage market
A consensus emerged over the past week as to the prospects for the home loan market in 2012. Both Deloitte and Genworth Financial released their mortgage market outlook reports, based on extensive surveys of industry participants. The common view is that the low-growth conditions of 2011 will ... More
Published on Monday, 28 November, 2011
Filed under mortgages
