As the majors signal they are tapering their risk appetite, chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake says Macquarie is ready to press its advantage as Australia’s fastest-growing retail bank.
In an interview with Capital Brief following the group’s bumper full-year results, Wikramanayake said margin compression across the industry didn’t worry her as Macquarie’s banking and financial services (BFS) division looks to grow.
“BFS is scaling up a lot and its cost to income ratio is coming down, so its net bottom line margin is actually getting better despite the top line margin. That for us is the big thing,” Wikramanayake said.
Return on equity remains the north star across the industry, but Macquarie’s arithmetic looks meaningfully different. With a sizeable technology advantage and at about a third of the majors’ scale, it has shown it can pick off market share almost at will. And it is.
