|
此文章由 philgu 原创或转贴,不代表本站立场和观点,版权归 oursteps.com.au 和作者 philgu 所有!转贴必须注明作者、出处和本声明,并保持内容完整
interesting debate but i don't think much was to the point. i don't work for westpac but have mortgage with it. here is my 2 cents.
westpac raise more than others, in my opinion, was mainly trying to rebalance its risk. considering the following
1. cba and wbc were the dominant market player in the home loan market with anz and nab has seriously balance sheet and corporate NPL problems. they have been taking more than 80% of new home loan written recently at the expense of anz and nab. in term of funding, banks use domestic deposits and whole sale funding to finance their loans. cba is in best position in term of deposit taking. over 50% of loans finance with deposits with wbc following it. it partially explains cba and wbc's aggressive lending lately. but after GFC, no banks can comfortably over rely on the volatile oversea whole funding anymore (at the same time, cheaper earlier funding was rolling off). they focus a lot on getting deposits (if u have watch gail kelly's interview after result meetiing). the deposits have been rising fast. it is a behavior change after GFC. also u need to consider this, aus banks have pretty good credit rating but Australia is very very highly geared nation (total debt to GDP ratio is on par with US, it is a consideration of wholesale lender overseas). simple fact has been wbc has lending too much lately and it wants to balance more towards its business lending. that is why the business lending rate was only up 25bps vs 45 bps for home loans. It DOES NOT want lend more in that space at least now. earlier in the year, i was debating whether first home loan would become aussie version of subprime given the aggressive lending and thin equity buffer for those loan (in case economy turn for the worse)
2. capital adequacy. it is consensus that aus banks are well capitalized. but recent CLSA paper pointed out if BASEL II applied, aus banks need to raise more capital. i am no expert in banking but recent chinese bank's capital raising news make sense to be at least skeptical. simple fact is the more new business u write, the more capital you need to hold. All banks are very much focused on ROE and ROIC returns. it doesn't make sense for them to write business which does get over the ROE hurdle rate and sufficiently cover their loan loss provision. Market share maybe but wbc has done that already
actually i thnk wbc's move might not be as stupid as people think.
for me two issues are important
1. when rba start the first rate rise and most importantly what RBA regards as neutral monetary setting in term of cash rate. Citi has target of 5.5% by end of next year. but my guess is that RBA definitely takes into account banks margin expansion. all banks additional rate rise is a form of tightening anyway. so i guess the more banks to raise the earlier or lower RBA will stop. RBA is quite shrewd in this regards. so banks raising more than RBA do is a timing issue rather than much rate difference.
2. i am happy to have a profitable & well capitalised banking system then paying lower rate but eventually cost u more. UK banking is a very good example. UK banks have been very competitive in term of pricing pre GFC. the result is that to achieve acceptable returns, they turn more risky. BankWest was their style and i believe it will take cba long time to sort out. (lucky they got it on the cheap). Aus banks are not smarter than them rather 4 pillar policy saved the day. they are sufficiently profitable domestically without the need to chase small return but bigger risk overseas. we are lucky on that regards. HIH collpase probably helped as well. APRA was more on the ball than oversea counter parties. I don't get some people's pice fixing argument at all.
in term of writing to wbc here is my take
1. i don't think they will give writing or phone call to loan mgrs or brokers too much weight. it is well and truely considered.
2. they will focus on customer's behavior of moving banks. there are two faces to it i think. maybe there are certain customers they want to get rid of... that is part of the strategy any way. however more profitable customer move will worry them a little probably.
3. any move to other banks cost. not only money but also time wasted to follow up calls. but if rba is to raise rate by another 1.25% - 1.75% in the next 12 months. how confident are u that other banks won't do something similar in Feb and WBC hold the fire instead.
4. in the end, i think it is just a timing issue among the big four and in end they could be very much in syc in 3-6 months time.
5. if some people are so confident that banks are too greedy or too profitable , very simple. can't fight them, join them. all banks are listed.
6. also i bet there will be a lot of free riders thinking around. it is also surprising how quickly people forget. remember Pacific Brand? how big backlash was that back then and now? all indication from the company lately says business doing well or ok. was just a media stun. short memory is so much stronger than long term ones. human nature means procrastination rules.
I hope i already bored u to sleep. 
[ 本帖最后由 philgu 于 2009-12-6 09:17 编辑 ] |
评分
-
查看全部评分
|