Deferrals dropping off
Westpac took an enormous 62 per cent hit to cash profit in FY20, following a huge increase in the impairment charge.
There was also the small matter of a fine to take into account this year for breaching anti-money laundering rules.
Some brighter news: mortgage deferrals have begun to decline sharply, down to 48,000 mortgage accounts (being 3 per cent of total mortgage accounts) by 19 October.
The outstanding deferral packages now equate to about 4 per cent of the mortgage book by value.
Peter King said he was 'very encouraged' with the remarkable drop, with 97 per cent of customers now making repayments.
Westpac provided in its investor pack a very useful graphic showing the share of expired mortgage deferral packages that have returned to repayments versus those opting to extend for an extra 4 months.
Source: ASX
Still a way to go here, but good to see.
Notably there is more work to be done with small business loans and it's 'earlier days' (King) in that part of the business.
The final dividend was slashed to just 31 cents per share. (prior year: 80 cents).
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Economists have warned that any rate cut this week may not be passed on in full by the banks.
Fair call as it related to variable rate mortgages, but stand by for record low fixed rates {timestamp}:
