Westpac's mortgage book grew strongly in June Qtr

Westpac is the first of the banks to release its June quarter disclosure statement which showed net profit rose to $287 million from $213 million in the June quarter last year as charges against profit for bad loans fell to $189 million from $234 million.

Of those bad loans, most, $129 million related to business lending while $61 million related to mortgages.

Westpac's net interest income grew 11.6% to $951 million in the three months.

Using the capital adequacy-based based measure of its mortgage book GoodReturns has used since December 2002, Westpac's mortgage book grew by $347 million to $34.65 billion in the three months.