The 'big four' mortgage war could be over in 2024
Intense competition for mortgages and deposits crunched big bank margins in the second half of 2023 but investors are happier now as competition backs off.
Investors in Australian banks weren’t happy with the September half earnings updates delivered in late October and early November. Profits were good, bad debts benign but margins were being crunched, largely due to intense competition for home lending.
In the shareholder meetings which fill the weeks after results, a common message was investors preferred profitability to market share growth.
“It’s fair to say that was a common theme,” one investor relations source told Capital Brief.
The banks listened. The intense competition for mortgages which underpinned much of 2023, as mortgage borrowers responded to rising interest rates by refinancing and laggards in market share, notably ANZ and Westpac, bid for their business, has subsided.
