Westpac targets Auckland

By KEVIN TAYLOR

A rebranding, a new chief executive, and a plush new head office have heralded a Westpac attack on the Auckland market.

Westpac is pouring resources into a battle for a greater share of Auckland's banking business - and that means taking on ASB.

New Zealand's largest bank, known until now as WestpacTrust, continues to lag in both retail and home loan customer share in Auckland.

The city's home loan market is more profitable for banks than other parts of the country because of the size of mortgages.

ASB has 31 per cent of the Auckland home loan market, and Westpac has just 17 per cent.

ASB has about 35 per cent of the retail customer market in Auckland, while Westpac has 16 per cent.

Mike Pratt, acting chief executive of Westpac NZ, said the bank would plough $100 million into its New Zealand operations - not all aimed at Auckland.

That offensive started this week with the renaming from WestpacTrust.

The bank is also in the throes of shifting head office from Wellington to Auckland, where it has leased six floors of PricewaterhouseCoopers Tower.

Four of the big five New Zealand banks now have their head offices in Auckland. Only National Bank is still in Wellington.

The Herald revealed this month that Westpac would drop the "Trust" from its name, reflecting the final submergence of the Trust Bank brand.

Pratt said it was preferable from a customer's viewpoint to have the bank named the same on both sides of the Tasman.

Market research showed most people called the bank Westpac these days anyway.

The rebranding was just one part of strategy work undertaken by the bank in the past five months, he said.

The $100 million in new investment was going on the rebranding, more salespeople and more jobs in Auckland, and new technology.

"This is a transtasman initiative around delivering a consistent customer experience," Pratt said.

The idea was customers would have the same experience whether they walked into the Invercargill branch or one in North Queensland.

Eventually the same products would be offered in both countries, he said, but that was dependent on a common technology platform, which did not yet exist.

Describing Westpac as a sleeping giant in the City of Sails, Pratt said the head office would now be in Auckland, the new chief executive of the bank would live in the city, and seven of the bank's 10 general managers would be there.

After the head office changes, 1700 staff would be in Auckland and 1400 in Wellington.

Australian banking executive Ann Sherry will head the New Zealand operation from November 11, when Pratt goes back to Australia.

"We've had an imbalance," he said. "We bought Trust Bank back in 1996 but we have never really focused on the Auckland market."

Pratt said he did not underestimate ASB, which was a "very good operation".

ASB head of retail banking and marketing, Barbara Chapman, said the bank had held its lead in the Auckland market for many years, so it had several competitors with similar intentions to Westpac.

She said the bank was not complacent about its position and was constantly pushing boundaries to keep delivering excellent service.

"The loyalty of our customers rewards us for that."

While ASB intended to be the bank of choice in all markets, Chapman said competition was welcome and was healthy for the business and good for customers.

Westpac's rebranding was announced in a big one-day print advertising drive in newspapers throughout the country yesterday, including the Herald.