November 2015

Strong home lending growth for Newcastle Permanent

Newcastle Permanent’s annual financial results highlight its sustained outperformance of other retail banking organisations in its core business of home lending, with a 53% increase in home loan portfolio growth from the previous financial year.

“In 2014-15 the home lending market was characterised by historically low interest rates, exceptionally high levels of customer repayments and continued strong competition from the major banks,” Chairman Michael Slater said.

“Newcastle Permanent has withstood unprecedented market conditions and emerged with strong home loan portfolio growth of 4.9%, which is a 53% increase on the prior year. This excellent performance was achieved while also completing the implementation of a new state-of-the-art home loan processing system,” he said.

Michael Slater said during the last seven years Newcastle Permanent had invested more than $60 million in major projects to improve the business’s infrastructure and introduce advanced customer facing technology to better meet customers’ needs and drive growth across the business.

Newcastle Permanent achieved a net profit after tax for 2014-15 of $36.5 million plus a $52.2 million mutuality dividend.

The regional banking organisation based in Newcastle, now employs almost 1,000 people throughout NSW and maintains an exemplary Tier 1 Capital Ratio of 20% with total assets now nearly $9 billion.