Kiwibank grows share of home loan pie

Kiwibank is the first of the home lending banks to release its general disclosure document for the December quarter and it shows that the bank's mortgage book grew $276 million from the end of September to $2.09 billion. That was $859 million more than at the end of 2004.

Using Reserve Bank figures as a proxy for the mortgage market, that puts Kiwibank's market share at 1.8%, up from 1.6% at the end of September and from 1.2% at the end of 2004.

Kiwibank's net profit rose to $3.2 million compared with $2.24 million in the September quarter. For the six months ended December, its $5.4 million net profit was more than double the $2.5 million recorded in the same six months a year earlier.

Kiwibank says its average mortgage was $150,436 at the end of 2005, up from $135,859 at the end of 2004. It says its customer numbers now exceed 400,000 and it expects them to exceed 500,000 by the end of 2006.

The bank has been expanding its services to small to medium businesses and now has 12 business centres in seven cities.