Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Westpac's 2021 Full Year Results. My name is Andrew Bowden, and I'm head of Investor Relations, Westpac. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners and the custodians of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Presenting today is our CEO, Peter King, and our CFO, Michael Rowland. Without further ado, I'll hand over to Peter. Thank you.
Well, good morning, and thanks for joining us. 2021 was an important year for Westpac. We are delivering on our refresh strategy, changing the way we operate, and we've restored momentum in key businesses. It's been a complex year with COVID impacting the economy, our customers, and how we work. While operational performance has improved, our financials are not yet where we want them to be. Cash earnings rose strongly as impairments were better, however, core earnings were lower. Our balance sheet is in good shape, and this allows us to return around AUD 5.7 billion to shareholders through the final dividend and share buyback. This morning I'll reflect on the full year result and the changes we're making in each division before Michael will cover the financials in more detail.
Across our Fix, Simplify and Perform priorities, we're tracking in line with the plans outlined at the start of the year. In the Fix priority, the customer outcomes and risk excellence program, or CORE as we know it, is largely through its design phase and will soon release a further two Promontory reports. The other significant area of delivery was financial crime. We've responded to all areas raised in the AUSTRAC case. We've made significant progress simplifying our portfolio of businesses, which I'll touch on shortly. In Perform, the highlight was restoring mortgage growth, and we also grew business lending in the second half. On costs, our AUD 8 billion target is a key focus, and with competition and lower interest rates impacting revenue, we must and will reset our costs. Cash earnings improved significantly to AUD 5.4 billion, with ROE just under 8%.
Our strong CET1 ratio, 12.3%, allows us to return significant capital to shareholders. Turning to the result, both reported net profit and cash earnings were up significantly. The two main drivers were an AUD 3.8 billion turnaround in impairments, as COVID's impact wasn't as big as we feared last year, and an AUD 1 billion fall in notables. Our EPS and ROE were both higher, but slightly lagged earnings growth given the capital we raised in 2020. Stripping out notable items gives us a better indicator of underlying performance, and on that basis, cash earnings was still higher, although core earnings were softer from lower margins and higher expenses. The decline in margins reflects both the market and our decision to grow mortgages. Expenses were higher as we added resources to improve risk management and reshape our business and do it quickly.
Last year, we refreshed our purpose and strategy. I'll use this slide to give our people context behind our priorities. The main change has been adding climate as a performance priority, which we announced at our ESG update in September. To deliver this strategy, we are fundamentally changing how we operate, and that starts with a simpler business portfolio. The sale of non-core businesses has been active, and you can see the great progress at the top of this slide. These transactions have boosted capital by 26 basis points this year. As we turn to 2022, our major focus is to progress the exit of Super and Platforms. The second leg is simplifying our banking operations. The lines of business operating model is creating clearer end-to-end accountability and faster decision-making, and the outcomes can be seen in both mortgages and business lending.
We're simplifying products and fees, and just as an example, we've reduced the number of mortgages on offer from 161 to 68 and halved the associated fees. This is reducing complexity, allowing us to better focus on core banking in Australia and New Zealand. To deliver our transformation, we need to change the way we work, embedding performance and risk cultures and simplifying everything we do. Of course, it starts at the top and I now have my team in place. In late 2020, we implemented McKinsey's Organizational Health Index to monitor progress. Over the last 12 months, our score has increased four points to 74, placing us close to the global top quartile for this measure. We have seen encouraging improvements in the culture measures of leadership, accountability, and direction. Now, risk culture is also improving.
I can see this in how we manage complaints, the progress in restoring high-rated issues or resolving high-rated issues, and the confidence people have in speaking up. Process simplification through mapping of end-to-end processes and controls helps us better manage risk and simplify the business. 2022 will see us continue this focus, particularly using digital to automate customer processes. I've been pleased with progress in consumer this year. Cash earnings rose 14% with credit quality in good shape. Although core earnings were lower as margins reduced and resources increased for fixed projects. Operationally, we improved the franchise, restoring mortgage growth following several halves of contraction. We also lifted customer acquisition with our new app and focus on millennials. While our NPS is not where we need it to be, it started to improve as we enhanced digital capabilities.
Digital has been a priority for the team with our new iOS app launch this year. It's a digital bank in your pocket, available 24/7, increasing both the speed and functionality of what customers can do online. One of the features introduced was a new deposit opening process, and this reduced the time to get a new customer up and running to just a few minutes. This helped lift customer acquisition, which is critical to building the strength of this franchise. The other significant change has been in the management of debit and credit cards. While many of us continue to use plastic, there's now a pathway to fully digital debit and credit cards. With the new app, you control the card. It allows you to download digital cards instantly. We've also made the CVC dynamic, which is a game changer in security, particularly online.
Turning around mortgage performance was a highlight, and we delivered 10 months of consecutive growth this year. To do well in mortgages, we must be competitive on price, application speed, and borrowing capacity or volumes drop off quickly. Following our focus on speed and competitive pricing, we are now back in the market. We're seeing over 70% of applications auto-decisioned, while customers are also using the app to track the progress of their applications, which is taking pressure off the mortgage team. We've completed the rollout of the digital mortgage origination platform to our network, and with first party done, we're now rolling out the platform to brokers. There has been some discussion on processing times, and we have a clear roadmap for further improvements next year. Having restored momentum and with brokers beginning to use our digital processes, we're well-placed for the year ahead.
If we turn to business, while the division lifted cash earnings significantly, it was more challenged at the core earnings line. Lending declined through the year, a function of more modest demand and our frontline fixing issues rather than spending time with customers. We also tightened our credit standards at the onset of COVID, but these have now been reversed and sees us winning customers back. Following changes in the first half, bankers are spending more time with customers, and a new digital onboarding process has also helped. The outcome has been higher lending in the second half and a healthy new lending pipeline. Institutional has undergone significant change over the last 18 months. Having refocused the business and refreshed the leadership team, we're now well-placed. We've just reduced offshore exposures, slimmed down correspondent banking, and simplified the product set.
We also had a tough year in markets income, which was a revenue drag on WIB and the group. The bottom right chart shows the reduction in offshore lending, increased domestic activity, and a rise in M&A activity was a feature of the second half. While WIB is now at lower risk, the changes have impacted revenue. However, they're mostly behind us, so we're now shifting our attention to growth, particularly for climate solutions. New Zealand delivered a strong financial result, achieving good growth and improved performance of both cash and core earnings. Similar to Australia, New Zealand is working through its program to lift risk management and digitize the bank. That change is being accompanied by the BS11 work to operationally separate from Australia, and these items particularly impacted second half expenses.
Growth in New Zealand mortgages was strong, and while we were slightly under market, we grew that book 10% this year. New Zealand deposit growth was also solid, with plenty of market liquidity. Margins were a little higher over the year, but down half on half. While lower rates contributed to decline, the New Zealand Central Bank is now increasing interest rates. On capital, we ended the year at 12.3%, well above APRA's unquestionably strong 10.5% threshold. Since the benchmark was announced in 2017, we've restructured our mortgage portfolio, reducing the proportion of investor and interest only, as well as applying a mortgage RWA floor. We feel well-placed to respond to APRA's final capital rules expected later this year.
On a pro forma basis, taking into account the buyback and announced asset sales, our CET1 ratio is 11.8%. We'll finalize the management buffers post APRA's announcements, but given the strength in the balance sheet, we decided to return up to AUD 3.5 billion through a buyback. The off-market structure works well for us as we can buy back shares at a discount, monetize some of our large franking credit surplus, and generate a reduction in the share count. This supports future earnings per share and dividends per share, and that benefits all shareholders. The strength of the balance sheet from a credit and capital perspective enabled us to lift the dividend to AUD 0.60 per share. The principle behind our approach remains the same, and we're targeting a medium-term sustainable payout ratio of around 60%-75%.
This is a little higher than we indicated at the half. In this half, we looked through notables, as many had no impact on capital, and on that basis, the payout ratio was 70%. We will neutralize the DRP by buying shares on market. Well, thanks, and I'll now hand to Michael to take you through the numbers.
Thanks, Peter, and good morning. When I look at the second-half result, I'd make three points. First, low interest rates and competition hit margins across lending. Trading income was weaker and costs were up as we focused investment on the things we need to do now and for future performance. Second, the balance sheet is strong. Capital generated from operations and investments has enabled us to increase the dividend and return capital to shareholders. Finally, we have a clear path to our cost target in 2024. Today, I'll provide more color on the numbers, achieving our cost target, and considerations for 2022. Let's turn now to the detail. Notables had an AUD 1.3 billion impact on cash earnings, up AUD 1 billion on the first half.
Remediation and litigation costs were AUD 172 million as we increased provisions, mainly in advice and in New Zealand and for litigation matters, including resolving outstanding investigations. Asset writedowns, including goodwill and capitalized software, were AUD 965 million. As previously disclosed, we wrote down mainly intangible assets in WIB following the annual impairment test. This concluded that we could no longer support the carrying value of these assets, with exited businesses and lower interest rates impacting revenue. Asset sales and revaluations were an AUD 182 million-dollar drag as we progressed the sale of businesses. The charge was for additional separation costs and write-offs related to the sale of life insurance. This was partly offset by the gain on general insurance and earn-out payments from vendor finance.
The sales of our specialist businesses underpin our simplification plans, reducing risk and complexity, but there's also an earnings impact. The bottom of this slide summarize the contributions of the businesses sold. We've previously flagged an AUD 1 billion after-tax charge in 2022 for the estimated loss on completion on the sale of life. This will be treated as a notable item and be recognized in non-interest income. Notables will be less of a feature of our results going forward. This chart summarizes second-half cash earnings with net interest income, non-interest income, and expenses all contributing to the decline. Excluding notable items, net interest income was down a couple of percentage points, with higher lending offset by lower margins, the opposite of the first half. Non-interest income decreased, primarily from lower trading income.
Expenses were up 9%, mainly from workforce increases, the lower utilization of leave balances, and higher investment spend on FIX. Asset quality has continued to improve, and we recognized a credit impairment benefit in the second half, albeit lower than the first, as we fully provided for the Forum Finance exposure. Tax was lower, with an effective tax rate of 36% above the Australian corporate tax rate, reflecting the nondeductibility of some Notable items. Turning to lending. This was a pleasing aspect of the result and reflects the focus and priority we have brought to the mortgage business. Total lending increased, driven by growth in Australian mortgages, where the buoyant property market and the process improvements we have made ensure that we grew in each half this year. Investor lending continued to contract.
This reflects our lower borrowing capacity, as we have adopted a more conservative approach to credit assessment than some in the market. Australian institutional lending improved from increased demand in the structured finance and retail segments. Business lending stabilized as our bankers focused on supporting customers in our core markets, offsetting elevated repayments from ample system liquidity. New Zealand continued to grow, with higher housing lending supported by continued growth in its property market. Personal lending declined as customers paid down their unsecured credit and shifted to alternatives. Turning to look at the Australian mortgages in more detail. We're pleased to deliver a turnaround. In the second half, we grew just ahead of major bank system with growth in the owner-occupied segment. Our better performance has been due to a strong property market, digital origination, additional lenders, improved productivity, and targeted pricing.
Looking at the composition of the book, we saw a decline in interest only and investor loans. Interest only is now just 16% of the book, while investor is down to 34%. 52% of flows have been in fixed rate lending as customer preferences for this type of loan continue in the low rate environment. The change in composition has impacted margins, so let's turn to that. The 11-basis-point impact from lending spreads was mainly from intense mortgage competition, along with the mix shift to fixed rate lending. Competition also put pressure on business lending spreads, while the reduction in personal lending balances dragged on margins too. Deposits contributed 4 basis points from lower TD rates and the continued shift to at-call deposits. The total benefit was smaller this half as a significant portion of at-call deposit rates had already reached their floor.
Funding liquidity generally added to margins as wholesale funding costs were lower as we drew down our full allocation of the TFF. Lower earnings on hedged capital balances also reduced margins. Going forward, we expect the detractor to have a reduced impact as we moved hedged capital back to the three-year swap rate. Treasury's contribution fell 2 basis points, reflecting lower volatility in the half. The September exit margin is around 180 basis points, excluding treasury and markets. Excluding notable items, non-interest income was down 6%, mostly from the fall in trading income. Fee income was up 1%, with higher institutional fees offset by a reduction in fees from correspondent banking. Wealth and insurance income was down 8%, mainly from the lower valuation benefit of life insurance liabilities and as customers migrated onto the lower margin Panorama platform.
This was only partly offset by higher general insurance income from fewer extreme weather claims and better LMI income prior to these businesses being sold. Trading income was down, particularly in fixed income, due to difficult trading conditions for us. Other income also included revaluation gains on investments held by Reinventure. Turning to expenses. As we've called out, notable items continue to have a major impact, adding AUD 1.6 billion to costs in the half. Excluding notables, costs were up 9%. We accelerated work on key fix projects with higher workforce costs. We expect this workforce to fall away progressively as we embed our risk management uplift. Another significant contributor was the lower utilization of leave balances as staff took less leave during the latest round of COVID lockdowns.
Investment spending, excluding the fixed component, was in line with our normal uplift over the second half. Spend remains heavily weighted to fix. Our core program is improving risk management and our culture. We've also improved our financial crime capability and systems, invested to meet changing regulatory requirements, and delivered a single Australian complaints handling system. The increase in costs was necessary to meet our obligations and set us up to deliver on our cost target. Let's turn to that. At our last results, we committed to a three-year cost plan with an absolute target of AUD 8 billion by 2024. We remain committed to that target, and expenses in 2022 are expected to be lower. As we move to delivery, we are now providing more clarity on our plans.
The decrease in cost is expected to come from a reduction in notable items and across three broad areas. I've called out the AUD 1.1 billion in expenses on the fixed priority that are one-off in nature. These are mostly related to temporary expansion of our workforce, to improve our risk and compliance environment, and to respond to historical issues. These costs will phase out over the next 2 years. On portfolio simplification, specialist businesses account for around AUD 800 million of costs. We've made progress on divestments, and we expect to see the benefits of lower costs this year. The remaining businesses do account for the majority of costs, and as Peter has said, we're committed to exiting them. Once these divestments are completed, we'll be left with AUD 9.1 billion of costs in our core banking business in 2021 terms.
We are continuing to simplify the business through streamlining and digitization in line with customer preference. We've already made good progress in 2021. Our digital mortgage platform has made our processes faster and better. All major brands are on the platform, and brokers are beginning to access it. Seventy-five percent of customers are accepting contracts online. Our upgraded iOS mobile app has been rolled out, allowing customers to deal with us digitally for their banking needs. There's still more to do, but we're progressing digital first at pace, and I'm confident of the strong customer and cost outcomes this will achieve. Finally, on organizational simplification, we are reducing our property footprint as we exit some CBD buildings. The next phase of simplification is further embedding our line of business operating model, including streamlining our head office.
At the first half, we provided the key metrics we're using to track the progress towards the 2024 target. We have updated these, and you can see we are implementing our digital-first approach. We've also added our total fixed one-off spend to this tracker as we see this as an important metric. The path to AUD 8 billion is clear. Every executive and general manager has a 3-year plan and an annual target, and delivery is in their scorecards. As I've said at the half, we are committed to this target. Moving now to credit quality. Almost every credit quality metric has improved. On the left, you can see that stress is reduced with lower watchlist and substandard as more corporates were upgraded. Employment is robust, asset prices have increased, and savings are high. Positive trends for credit quality.
On the top right, you can see 30-day mortgage delinquencies ticked up given our treatment of the second round of COVID packages. We will re-age these loans at the end of their 3-month deferral period. This should see most of them stay out of the 90-day bucket. There is more information on this in the pack. Unsecured lending delinquencies declined despite the contraction in the portfolio as the underlying performance improved. Our provisioning comprises both modeled outcomes and judgment. Total provisions were 140 basis points of credit risk-weighted assets and remain above pre-COVID levels, but despite the releases in the half. In aggregate, provisions were down 9% over the half, although the level is still 27% higher than pre-COVID. The group has maintained the economic scenario weights given remaining uncertainties and applied judgment in the calculation of overlays.
Our forecasts show that recent lockdowns will negatively impact GDP for calendar year 2021, but we expect a sharp rebound in 2022, albeit off a lower base. Unemployment is expected to be lower, and we expect the property price increases to moderate to high single digits. The overlay reduced over the half as customers who had taken out deferrals following 2020 COVID outbreaks recommenced payments. However, we retained the bulk of the overlays as there's still uncertainty how customers will recover from recent lockdowns and when the Australian economy completely opens up. Shifting to the composition of the impairment charge, the only increases were in new IAPs in the half, reflecting the group's exposure to Forum Finance. Write-backs and recoveries were also better as a small number of impaired exposures were refinanced.
Write-offs direct were down, consistent with the decline in lending and lower delinquencies in unsecured consumer and auto portfolios. Model collective provisions reduced further this half in line with improved credit quality and better economic outlook. Capital remains a strength, with the CET1 ratio at a healthy 12.3%. Cash earnings were the biggest contributor, followed by capital released from completed divestments. The payment of the interim dividend consumed 49 basis points of capital. Risk-weighted assets increased on the half and were broadly flat on the prior corresponding period. The 16 basis points decreased from risk-weighted assets in the waterfall, mostly related to the application of the mortgage risk weight floor of 25%. On the right of the chart, we show the impact of the share buyback and the benefit from asset sales announced but not yet completed.
Pro forma CET1 is expected to be 11.8%. Peter has already touched on the rationale for the off-market share buyback. The features of the buyback are on this slide. I refer you to the details in the buyback booklet and encourage you to read it. I'd make three points. First, this approach allows us to buy back shares efficiently and at a discount to the market price. It benefits all shareholders, as reduced share count supports earnings per share, dividends per share, and overall return metrics. The buyback allows us to distribute further franking credits to shareholders. The group's franking balance remains healthy even after allowing for the buyback and payment of the fully franked final dividend. 2022 has a number of dynamics that we see playing out, and we've set them out here for you.
We expect to maintain momentum in the mortgage market and grow in line with system. While our focus on business lending is bearing fruit, it will be a longer fix. We are encouraged by pockets of early growth. Margins remain under pressure with competition and low interest rates likely to continue. Front book/back book pressure and fixed rate lending in mortgages will likely further weigh on margins. Detractor is expected to have less of an impact compared to the last half as we have moved to a three-year hedge on capital as interest rates rose. Non-interest income will benefit from higher economic activity, however, divestments will drag. Markets income is difficult to predict given the impacts of QE and volatility. Costs, excluding notables, will be lower in 2022, and I've provided color on this already.
Credit metrics are in good shape, and the economic outlook is positive. Finally, we expect APRA's final capital rules, while the removal of the CLF will also impact capital. With that, let me hand back to Peter.
Well, thanks, Michael, and let me sum up. 2021 saw us improve our operational performance, lay the foundations for better risk management, and make progress on portfolio simplification. In the year ahead, we expect a stronger economy, and that's supportive for banking. In 2022, we're focused on three big priorities. Firstly, growth in our core businesses, in particular, maintaining growth in mortgages and lifting growth in business and WIB. Secondly, resetting our cost base. And finally, ongoing simplification and digitization, including further divestments. Overall, I'm confident on the outlook for Westpac. Let me now hand to Andrew for your questions.
Thanks, Peter. We'll just have one question. Just a reminder, star one if on the phone you'd like to register a question. I'll take the first one from Andrew Lyons, please.
Thanks, Andrew, and good morning. Just a question on your margins. You've noted that your exit NIM is about seven basis points below the half average. Can you perhaps just provide a bit of detail around the drivers of the weakness in the exit NIM vis-à-vis the half average? Is it broad-based, or are there some one-off items that might have driven the NIM lower at the back end of the half?
Michael.
Thanks for the question. The biggest impact on NIM in the half was the reduction from lending, as we indicated in the slide. That's a reflection of both the mortgage margin as well as the business lending margin, where we are responding to the current market price. It reflects the mix shift from fixed rate, from variable rate lending to fixed rate lending, both for new lending and also from the back book. They're the two big impacts that impact the exit margin in the second half.
Okay, thanks. Just a second one. You appear to have about AUD 30 billion of CLF, which over the course of next year will need to be shifted into HQLAs. Can you perhaps just talk about what impact you think that will have on the FY 2022 NIM?
As we've indicated, the CLF does reduce to zero over 2022. We do need to add HQLA to the portfolio. We'll do that over time. That'll be a function of purchasing additional HQLA through additional funding, but also it'll be function of our deposit-raising capability. It will have an impact, but we expect it to be minor at this point.
Okay.
Take a question from Jonathan Mott, please.
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Michael. No surprise, more questions on margins. Can you give us an indication what your current spread between your front book mortgage margins and your back book mortgage margins, so we can sort of utilize that to try and understand what a trajectory from here will be? Just more broadly on managing margins, Westpac used to be sort of known as prioritizing margin over volume. That seems to have flipped, that volume is a more important driver going forward. I just wanted to get some comments on that change in philosophy.
Well, Jonathan, I might take the second part, and then I'll hand to Michael for the front book/back book question. In terms of the volume margin trade-off, we recognize that we have been, you know, ceding share. In fact, in mortgages, the book was contracting. You're right, that's a good strategy to manage margin. Over time, we need to grow our customers, we need to grow the franchise. With transactions and deposits, you get a whole of customer relationship. The way we've thought about it is we wanna be back at market. We've got to see these books growing again. We've got to attract customers. To do that, we've got to be focused on three things in our mind. First is the service, the speed of turnaround.
Second is, lending capacity, and the third is competitive pricing. That's what we've been working on in all our books. You've seen it most in mortgages this half. The other thing I would highlight, you know, which is a bit unique at this point, is, fixed variable's been a very big impact, as Michael spoke about, in terms of customer preferences. For us, we've got to grow the franchise. Got to grow revenue over time. It's been, you know, we've turned over about 20% of the mortgage book into the new market pricing, I think it is this year. Michael, do you want to talk about it?
Yeah, certainly. As Peter said, you know, the way we look at it, we're responding to the market pricing. We need to remain competitive, and that means, in a low interest rate environment, the front book/back book spread does decrease. That's exacerbated by the mix shift to fixed rate lending. We've given you an indication by the exit margin to give you a trajectory on our margin. What I'd say on the front book/back book, there's lots of factors in there. You know, that you've got a potential, you know, you've got the actual interest rates and what might happen in the future. You've got all those figures. I think the best way to look at it is look at the RBA stats.
They give you a view of the industry and ourselves. I think that's the best way to look at it in that context.
Michael, would you suggest that your given historical approach that you would be worse than the industry average for front book/back book? I mean, having a larger gap.
Can only talk to our numbers. I can't really talk to the industry as a whole.
Look, Jonathan Mott, I think what is different about Westpac is the fact that we've reshaped that mortgage book so materially since 2017. Interest only has a higher margin, as does investor, and we've materially reshaped the mortgage book to be much more owner-occupied P&I compared to where it was 2017. It does mean we've given up revenue. If we had that same shape of book, we would have materially higher revenue. But we just thought that was the right thing to do, certainly as we set up for the different risk weights coming in later in the year.
Okay, thank you.
Take a question from Richard Wiles.
About the outlook costs, you said the costs will be lower in FY 2022. They've gone up 7.5% in the last year. You know, that doesn't give us much comfort, certainly doesn't give us much guidance as to where the cost might be next year.
Last year they were at AUD 10.2, or 2020 they were at AUD 10.2. The illustrative guidance on slide 25 suggests they'll be around about that level. Would it be fair to conclude that your guidance for FY 2022 is that costs will be back in line with the FY 2020 level of AUD 10.2 billion excluding notable items?
Thanks, Richard, for the question. Look, what we've tried to do in the presentation today is giving you a view on how we see costs going down over the next three years. We remain committed to the AUD 8 billion. We're not going to disclose what we see as the cost base for next year, but you can see that a lot of the reduction is in relation to the removal of the fixed one-off spend. That reflects us getting through a lot of the design phase on our core and risk uplift programs, and that will, as I said, come off progressively over the next two years. The underlying cost base, we've shown you that at 9.1 in 2021 terms, will reduce as we digitize and streamline the portfolio.
That will come off over time. It's probably more likely to come off in a trajectory sense in 2022 and 2023, but as we've given you guidance, it'll come down in 2022.
Michael, slide 22. Slide 25, if you just look at it, says costs will be AUD 10.2 billion in 2022, including the specialist businesses and the fixed. Should we ignore that drawing? Is that drawing to scale? Is that illustrative or is it guidance?
Richard, we don't give guidance on our costs for next year. What we're saying, that shows you the trajectory of how we're looking at it. That's the best way to look at it.
Thank you.
We'll take question from Brian Johnson, please.
Thank you very much. Just to reiterate, Richard's point, if you have a look at slide 25, it looks like AUD 10.2 billion to me. But I'm really confused as to whether you're saying that's an error in the drawing or whether we should think that's a guidance. I'm going to assume that the drawing is correct, and I think the whole market will, which is why the share price is down 6%. But the question that I actually had was, if you have a look at the exit run rate NIM that was down quite a bit, the problem is that according to the APRA stats, we can see that the owner-occupied book is still growing and the investor book is still shrinking. Is the run rate NIM in the next month after the exit run rate, is it even lower again?
Because the mix would suggest it's still declining.
You're right, Brian. We have grown the owner-occupied book this half-year. Our intention is to provide solutions to all customers, and we will focus on growing both investor lending and business lending, which as Pete indicated, has a higher margin. We're actually pleased that we've got growth in owner-occupied, but we are focusing on growing those other two books. We've given you the exit margin as a view of how we're going into the first half of 2022. That's the best guidance we can give you. Rest assured, we're focused on growing those other higher margin segments.
Michael, the point is right, isn't it? That is, given the last month, we saw owner-occupied up and we saw investor down, the existing run rate is probably not commensurate with the margin erosion that you'll see in the next month as well. Can I just confirm that's correct?
That's the trajectory. That's a reasonable conclusion to draw.
Brian, the only other thing I'd add is.
Thank you, Michael. Thanks.
As Michael said, there's, you know, changes to the way we hedge capital which will benefit from the three-year rate rises, which have been pretty steep at the back of the year. There were some deposit repricing changes recently as well.
Thank you.
Take question from Victor German, please.
Thank you, Andrew. I was hoping to just follow up on costs as well. I appreciate you don't wanna give us guidance for 2022, but you did say that costs are gonna be lower. Would you be able to at least provide us the base that we should work from, given that there's a few moving parts, including divested businesses? Just be useful to understand down from what number? Then, sort of related question. With specialist businesses, I can see in that. Appreciate it's an illustrative part, but it looks like you're providing or you're suggesting that they will drop out by 2023.
Should we assume that that is the timing of your divestments, or should we now start thinking about potential stranded costs, with these businesses as well?
Just to give you some assistance on that. The best way to think about the base is to look at the graph excluding Notable Items. That's how we think about it. Each of those segments will decrease. We will have less costs in fixed & one-off. As the specialist businesses sales complete, those costs will come out of the cost base. We've given you some numbers in the IDP to help you do that. As I said, we expect a reduction in the BAU cost, and we've given you the base of that at AUD 9.1.
Michael, just to be clear, you are expecting a reduction in the cost base ex the divestment on an underlying base?
That's right.
Okay. Just one thing to confirm also with the STIC number of AUD 1.1 billion, which you're expecting to reduce over time. I noticed that in your investment spend, you've got obviously increased quite materially this year. It's now around AUD 2 billion. Within that number, that 70% relates to STIC. As that number reduces, presumably you're not expecting your investment spend to reduce well below AUD 1 billion. Does that mean that there's some capturing of that investment in the BAU line? How should we sort of think about that mix?
Yeah, the best way to think about, as you say, that the investment spend increase this year is predominantly on the fixed spend. You know, as I indicated in the presentation, we've increased our spend on financial crime, so we've upgraded systems and capability. We've upgraded our compliance management system, and we've invested generally across our three lines of defense. That's increased. That will come down over time, as we exit the specialist businesses, get our risk management framework in better shape, and then have the remaining investment focused on our core banking business. We do expect it to go down, but we've still got a little bit of work to do yet.
Thank you.
Take a question from Brendan Sproules, please.
Good morning. I just got a question on the fixed rates mortgage market. What are your expectations for the competitiveness in that market, just given that swap rates pretty much across sort of 1-5 years have really expanded in the last month? Then I have a second question just on costs. I mean, you obviously had to accelerate, as you've mentioned, some of the fixed costs in this year, which sort of has, I guess, surprised us today. What are the uncertainties around your cost base for next year that you're not sort of prepared to offer us a target today?
Brendan, I might, obviously we can't talk about any future changes in interest rates. That's a tricky area for us. In terms of sort of fixed rates in the market, if I think about where they were back in March, the three-year swap rate was around 35 basis points. You roll forward today, it's about 140. So you had over 1% move in those rates. It's been pretty quick, and it's been through September and October. It's unclear where it's gonna go, but there's still a chance it'll go up. You know, you'd probably say the rates at some point in the previous half were the best in this cycle for customers.
On the second question on fixed costs, you're right. We made a deliberate decision to increase our and accelerate our costs on fixed to get ahead of it. You know, as I said before, we have clear plans over the next three years to reduce those costs across all the buckets. What could come out that we don't expect, additional regulatory requirements that we haven't been advised of or don't know about. That's the only thing at this point. You can't rule it out, but that would be the only uncertainty that I can see.
Thank you.
Take a question from Jonathan Mott, please.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Another question on the margin. If you go back over time, and I think Jonathan Mott asked a question on this, but I want to sort of get a bit more detail. If you look over the last couple of years, your margin from 2018 went 2.16%, 2.12%, 2.13%, 2.13%. In the last three halves, we've seen a down 10, up 6, down 9. Now, I know you want to get back in the market and be competitive and stabilize your market share. I can totally understand that. But this is huge amounts of volatility for your business and throws huge amounts of volatility through the earnings profile because it gets amplified because costs don't move around as quickly as this.
Is there anything apart from getting back in the game on price and being more competitive that has led to this huge volatility on an AUD 800 billion balance sheet, see the margin move around so quickly? Is there anything else that we can think about that's throwing these numbers out?
Yeah, I think, well, just a couple of comments on that. Treasury is obviously one of them, but you got to look at the margin ex. Treasury can move around a little bit, but that gives you a bit of a sense. Really, we're at a point in the interest rate cycle where, you know, deposits aren't moving as much as lending. So there's a bit of a floor impact in the result. We've had a shorter capital hedge on in the sense of that, so we're probably a bit further through. Then, as Michael highlighted, I think, we're well-positioned for hopefully what is an upswing. Then the other piece that I flagged is, we've predominantly been growing mortgages, so we've got a big mix impact there.
We need to get other parts of our business growing. Business lending, in particular the unsecured personal piece is a bit, has been contracting. I think it's a bit cyclical, a bit competitive. The other thing is liquidity driving into the markets, keeping RMBS costs down for lots of people. There's obviously the cycle, the competition, and then what we need to do to grow our business all at play.
Do you think this will stabilize as we get through this next 6, 12 months, and then we'll be onto a more stable environment, and we're going through a rebase? Or how do you see this? Could we easily see it spike back up like we did in the first half this year?
For it to spike back up.
Is this just a rebase to a lower level?
No. You know, for us and thinking about returns and margins in the medium term, I would hope that they're going to rise from here. I'm talking medium term, not next year. That needs a different interest rate level to what we have in the economy today.
Thank you.
I'll just add that to what Peter said. You know, we've been through an extraordinary interest rate cycle. You know, we keep forgetting that these are the lowest rates we've seen for many years. It creates volatility. There's nothing that's in the margin that we haven't disclosed to you. Going forward, we expect there to be more volatility, as Peter said. I think it's hard to get a stable view, but it's worth keeping that in mind.
Thank you.
Take a question from Matthew Wilson, please.
Yeah, good morning, team. Just thinking about the shape of your franchise. You know, you used to have the best institutional franchise on the street. You've spent the last five years shrinking it and de-risking it, and it may have happened at a time when we're actually gonna move capital back into institutional banking with rates going higher, with what we need to do in climate change. Obviously, a large amount of trillions of dollars of capital needs to be spent there, and yet your institutional franchise doesn't look as though it's now in a position to capture the benefits from it. You're pursuing really hard in housing, and we look as though we're at the end of a housing cycle. APRA's clearly gonna implement macroprudential. The RBA, at some stage, when they wake up, will raise rates.
You look behind the curve in how you're shaping your franchise.
Well, Matt, I'm probably more positive on the institutional bank than what you sound like you are. The biggest move that we've had is we invested heavily in some of the Asian locations over the last 4-5 years, and that didn't pay off for us. We're coming back to Australia. I feel pretty good about the domestic capability of our institutional book. You can see the growth in lending in the second half, and that was because we were there for some big customers with some big deals. I think we do have a good capability. We financed about 33 sustainable finance transactions this year. We have an electricity portfolio skewed to sustainable sources. I think it's about three-quarters.
We don't talk about it a lot, but I actually think we've got a very good capability there and one that we can certainly build on. You know, the challenge for that WIB book has been the reshaping to get us back to a simpler geographic presence, but I'm very confident in the outlook for WIB.
Okay. No, that's good. Just one final question. You know, we get to AUD 8 billion cost base in, you know, 2 or 3 years' time. What are your plans then for removing the duplication, the complexity in your core banking platform?
Well, that's happening over time. One of the benefits of the one mortgage origination system for mortgages is that we now have one back-office process, not four. It's policy, process, digital offer policy process, and then the ledger system at the back end. The ledger's not our problem, Matt. The problem is the front end, and we're getting after it now, not waiting to the back end.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Take a question from Andrew Triggs, please.
Thanks, Andrew. I just had a couple of questions really around the slide in the deck, slide 44, which is the customer franchise metrics. I think it has been arguably the more concerning slide for a while now. The MFI share, which is 15.7% for the group combined, is well below both your mortgage and customer deposit market share or consumer deposit market share. 2 questions there. I mean, 1, what are the focus areas for turning this around? And secondly, you talk a lot about the balanced scorecards for management reflecting the cost reset agenda. What percentage of it relates to costs? And what percentage of the balanced scorecard relates to, you know, specific and quantified improvements in the MFI score?
Broadly for the group, it's 30 fix, 20 simplify, 50 customer and financials are the broad weightings, and that's across the company. That gives you a sense on relative focus areas, if you like. We're looking at both MFI, which is an external measure, as well as the customer stats, but we also then go down into product and channels, and we are seeing improvements in our product and channel CSAT and NPS as well. That's why we are very focused on the capability in each of our businesses for customers. We are seeing improvements there as well. If you go back to my slide on millennials, you can see we've started to grow there again. That wasn't the case if you go back a few years.
I think the broader point is, we've got the distribution teams focused on the customer. We've got to get the rest of the company lined up behind how we drive value in the franchise and customer outcomes, and that will be at a lower cost for the group. We've got to reset this cost base because we're uncompetitive at the moment.
Thanks, Peter. Could I follow up on the business bank? I think most of the market have a good handle on, well, what's happened on the retail side of things, but I think less sort of well understood what's gone wrong in the business bank. Could you give a few thoughts there on what needs to improve to be consistently performing well in small business banking?
Yeah. It was two big levers. Firstly, our bankers aren't spending enough time with customers. They've been involved with some of the fixed agenda, that has materially changed towards the end of this year, and we're getting them out with bankers. Everything is going towards banker time out with customers. The second piece is credit standards. We did tighten at the start of COVID. They've been now reset. The third is we need to apply what we've done in mortgages in terms of digital capability into the business segment is our other big focus.
Thanks, Peter.
Take a question from Luca Ittimani, please.
Thank you. I just, again, kind of related to the margins. On the replicating portfolio, can you just run us through the thinking in terms of that change? It does look like it gives you a pretty material uplift in the spot reinvestment rate based on today's swap rates, about 45 basis points by my calculations. Is there a rationale behind that, or is it really just to try and take advantage of the higher market pricing?
Yeah. As I indicated in the presentation, we did in the second half move out to the three-year swap rate. That reflected obviously a change in the curve at that level. Also, as we indicated at the half, the impact on the margin from the replicating portfolio was lessening over the year anyway. As we pointed out, we just decided given the trajectory for rates, we would push out to the three-year rate.
The thinking about it behind shortening it up earlier in the year was Michael recognized there was no pickup for term. There was a pretty flat curve between 1 and 3 years, so there was no pickup, so we shortened the profile and then it's been lengthened now as rates have gone up.
Thanks. Just also, I guess thinking about NIM and funding again. On the deposit side, you had that bit of a benefit in NIM over the half. Looks like there's probably pretty limited impact there. Do you think you'll be able to squeeze any more out of lower deposit rates, or has most of that come through now given the vast majority are under 25 basis points?
Yeah, the 4 basis points improvement in the half came from TDs, so, you know, less in TDs. At call is pretty much at the floor, so we don't expect much margin improvement in the first half from deposits.
Thanks.
Go take a question from Justin McCarthy, please.
Thank you, Andrew. Peter, you've already responded to a couple of questions on the margin volume trade-off, but I've got another one for you, if that's okay. In the second half, you've grown home lending in line with system with notably lower margins. You're pointing to similar dynamics next year with growth in line with system and lower margins. What we've seen in the consumer division in the second half is contraction in net interest income, half-on-half and year-on-year. Can we expect that contraction to continue next year, or do you think you can arrest that decline going into next year? Also, in terms of your system growth outlook, I note that your economics team is forecasting growth of 8.5% for next year.
Do you think if growth does get up to that level, that there will be further macroprudential tightening?
I'll deal with your second one and Michael can deal with the margin. I think we're at a point where the regulators rightly are very much focused on affordability of houses and, you know, house prices outstripping income growth. It's right to tap on the brake to slow it down through the buffers. I think if it doesn't slow down, then there's probably gonna be more response coming. It's, you know, affordability metrics that we track through our economics team are stretched. You gotta go back some time to see them as bad as what they are at the moment. I think it's the right thing to tap to slow the market down.
Yes, on the margin question, the big driver of the reduction in net interest margin in the half was from lending and from Australian mortgages driving that. And as I indicated, we grew strongly the owner-occupied segment. Not so much investor and not so much interest only. We will look to grow those sectors in line with market in 2022. While we're signaling that margin will be down in 2022, there are levers that we can pull, and that the team is very focused on to ameliorate any complete adverse impact of the reduction.
Michael, are you saying you're confident you can grow net interest income for the consumer division next year?
I think that we do have levers to pull to manage margin in 2022. The trajectory is down, as I indicated. That will flow through. How that plays out in net interest income will be a function, obviously, of the size of the market, and if growth outstrips our current estimates, then that will do better. It's with the team to manage that margin up and focus on those higher margin segments. I'm not making a call on what net interest income will be, but we're very clear on what we need to do to arrest the decline in margin. Hopefully, growth in the market will help us there as well.
Thank you.
Take question from Ed Henning, please.
Thank you for taking my questions. Just two from me back on your favorite topic of margin. If we just focus on competition, you know, is it fair to say you needed to pedal harder to get back the system in mortgages, and now you also have increasing digital mortgage origination. Do you see the headwind just from the competition side slightly easing, or is the market just super competitive and that headwind's gonna continue at the same pace as the first one?
Look, as I think I said at the half year, I've been in this industry for a long time. Competition in the mortgage market is as intense, if not more intense than I've seen in the past. We have a lot of new entrants coming into the market who are offering very low rates with no back book and no cost, and providing a digital-only offer. We expect that competition to continue. Our response to that, as Peter indicated, was providing digital origination, making it easier and quicker for customers to deal with us, and having a competitive rate. Those things are critical. They're within our control. We will manage that. On the competition side, I really don't see that changing much in 2022.
Even with the digital mortgage origination, you think you'll have to be as aggressive as ever on price, so you can't even feed back to the middle of the pack and still grow at 6%?
Need to be at the market on price in mortgages in 2022. There's no question.
Okay. Just a second one on non-interest income. You know, you talked about the benefits coming through from activity, and then you've got the divestments as a headwind. Do you see that as a net positive or a negative for next year or in total for non-interest income?
I think, you know, as we think about it, we're hopeful that as the economy opens up, we get international travelers, we get more activity in the economy, we will benefit across all our businesses from greater activity. However, we are disposing of businesses that have traditionally generated a lot of non-interest income, and we've got more and more assets on the Panorama platform. I think we're guiding generally to lower non-interest income, which is consistent with the trend. I think I said this at the half as well. They're consistent with the trend over the last 10 years in the industry, not just with Westpac. We are hopeful that a positive momentum from economic recovery will support non-interest income next year.
Okay. At this stage, unless it's really strong, it's you're looking at slightly down.
Take a question from Brett Le Mesurier, please.
Thanks, Andrew. You grew your loan book by 3% in the last six months. Do you have a sense as to how much higher your margin would have been if it had only grown by 2%, being 1%, assuming 1% reduction across the board?
Haven't done that calculation. Sorry, Brett.
Given that you haven't done that calculation, how do you determine what level of growth you should be chasing?
Well, we're looking at hurdle. You know, we're very happy with the return from the business that we're writing in. If I look at the return in Consumer Bank and Business Bank, though, you know, it needs improvement. It's about the hurdle that we'll get from that business.
The hurdles are lower than they used to be, I presume.
Yes, they are.
Okay. They're all the questions I have. Thank you.
Thanks. I might just remind we're gonna take some media calls. Star one if you want to log a question. I'll take one from Clancy Yeates, please.
Oh, hi, Peter. You said that more sort of macroprudential policy was likely if the market doesn't slow down. Could I just clarify? You've talked about 8% house price growth next year. Does that assume no more change in macroprudential policy?
It's the 8% from our economics team, Clancy, and I'm fairly sure they will be forecasting based on what's in place at the moment. They wouldn't be trying to predict any future changes to macroprudential.
Okay. What do you think the regulator's goal is here? Do they want to stabilize house prices or do they just want to see it slow more, grow more slowly? Like, what do you think they're trying to achieve?
APRA is about banking stability. You know, they're thinking about the state of the banking balance sheets. Now, I'm not saying there's a problem with banking balance sheets. Capital is good. The credit outcomes are good. Funding and liquidity is good. They're just, I think, trying to get a little bit in front of it, in terms of what's happened.
Okay, thanks.
Jackson Hewett, please.
Hi there, Peter. Just to follow up to one of the analysts, I think Matt, asking about institutional banking in the energy transition. We're seeing COP26 on now. There's discussion of this Article 6, which is about finalizing carbon market rules. Like, this is a really big area for Westpac in the past. Then we saw ANZ last week talking about, you know, its institutional bank being really well positioned to lend into this, you know, massive energy transition. Like, can you just talk a little more about your aspirations for the institutional bank in this transition? Like, can you match ANZ's lending without that Asian footprint? Do you support the carbon market developing and Australian companies participating in a global emissions trading scheme?
Yeah. Well, just on climate solutions, we're already there. We've already got AUD 10 billion in lending. As I said, 75% of lending to electricity generation is to sustainable sources. We did 33 transactions this year. Our focus will be domestic. Australia and New Zealand will be our focus, and helping customers to transition. In terms of carbon pricing, we've supported a price on carbon. You know, I don't know how that will flow out given the developments globally, but certainly we do support a price on carbon.
On the footprint of the institutional bank, without that Asian footprint, do you think you can remain competitive in this sort of energy transition project finance space?
We do. I mean, we've got a massive balance sheet in Australia and New Zealand. We've got operations in Singapore, London and New York and soon to be in Germany for Brexit. Our footprint will support our aspirations in climate.
Thanks, Peter.
Take a question from John Kehoe, please.
Oh, thanks, Peter. Just wondering if we do get a rising interest rate environment over the next couple of years, I know it's still a big if, what do you think that means for sort of the bank net interest margins across the industry? Surely that's going to be positive. Are the banks going to get a positive carry trade therefore on the term funding facility, given that that money was fixed at three years and through mid-2024?
Well, on the TFF, that's now finished. As Michael said, we've drawn down our allocation. That's sort of in the numbers, if you like. In terms of looking forward and interest rates, that'll depend on competition as well as what happens with interest rates. Certainly, we see some positives from higher rates already in the way that we invest our capital. That's about mid-40 billion worth of capital that we need to invest. A three-year rate going from 40 basis points, 35 basis points back in March up to 1.4% is good for our margins. I'll take a question from Peter Ryan, please. Have we lost the sound there, guys. I'll just try.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can. Thanks.
Yeah. Question for Peter. Thanks for taking the question. Just on the housing market, we're seeing, you know, house prices continuing to surge, rocket increase. How concerned are you about a potentially looming correction even if we do get gentle interest rate increases, perhaps earlier than expected?
Well, when we lend, and this has been for the last couple of years, we've been using a 5% floor rate for assessing affordability of housing. Most people are borrowing in the low 2s. We've assessed people at 5%, they're borrowing at 2%, so we feel like there's capacity for people to afford higher rates. Having said that, I think there is a correlation between interest rates and housing prices. We can see that over history and therefore, you know, housing prices are likely to moderate, and we certainly see our economics team forecasting slower growth, still growth in 2022 and some contraction in 2023.
Okay. Thanks, Peter.
I'll just remind, if people wanna do a question, star one on the phone. I'll take one from Joyce Moullakis, please.
Oh, yes. Hi, Peter, and thanks for taking the question. Just one of the slides in the presentation mentions reduced head office roles and a reduced corporate space on the real estate footprint. Could you provide a little bit more color around that? I think it mentioned a 20% reduction in head office roles. Could you give a bit more color around that and the timeframe around it? If I understand it excludes the branch footprint.
Michael. Do you want to
Joyce, Michael Rowland here. The way we think about that is, as I indicated, as we simplify our organization, we need less complexity in our head office to support a larger organization. Remembering that Westpac was set up as a banking and wealth business. As the wealth business reduces and we exit those businesses, we need less head office support. That will come down over the time that we sell those businesses and as we indicated, that'll be progressively over the next two years.
Okay. It doesn't include the branch network.
We're very clear that we continue to invest in the branch network. We are focused on responding to customer preferences, so that's why we're investing heavily in digital, and digital first is a clear, key focus. This is not about the branch network.
Okay. Thank you.
I'll take a final question from Cliona O'Dowd, please.
Hello. Thanks for taking my question. I was just looking for an update on your banking-as-a-service platform, just especially since, you know, Afterpay got acquired by Square, if that impacts anything. How much does Westpac expect their banking as a service platform to help reduce its digital costs over FY 2022?
In terms of banking-as-a-service platform, the last major requirement has been delivered. That was the ACCC sign-off for open banking. We're pretty much ready to launch now. It's a consumer offer. Consumer deposits is the offer. You'll hear more soon. I might leave it there.
Oh, so exciting. Okay.
Okay. Well, thank you all for your time this morning, and good morning.
Thank you.