How much did Westpac grow its home loan business?

Westpac's profitability also rose strongly in the quarter as its net interest income grew at a healthy pace while its charges against profit for bad loans continue to abate.

The bank's general disclosure statement (GDS) for the quarter for its New Zealand subsidiary (its branch's GDS, which includes all its New Zealand activities, hasn't been released yet) shows using the capital adequacy-based based measure of its mortgage book goodreturns.co.nz has used since December 2002 threw up just as nonsensical figures as did its December quarter GDS.

By that measure, Westpac's mortgage book grew by $1.63 billion to $34.3 million in the March quarter following even more unbelievable growth of $3.53 billion in the December quarter.

However, its note on loans shows its housing loans growing $170 million to $34.47 billion following $53 million growth in the December quarter. Unfortunately, not all the home lending banks provide an equivalent note, making comparisons problematic.