Gareth Vaughan

As ANZ was the runaway winner in terms of securing new residential mortgage business during the September quarter, ASB was also well ahead of the pack in terms of growing lending to businesses, including farmers, increasing by almost 5%.

The banks' General Disclosure Statements covering the three months to September 30 show ASB grew corporate lending by NZ$562 million, or 4.8%. By value, that's more than double second placed BNZ, which grew by NZ$244 million.

"With the gradual recovery of the New Zealand economy we are seeing strong growth spread across both the corporate and rural sectors," Steve Jurkovich, ASB's executive general manager for commercial & rural banking, told interest.co.nz via a spokesman.

"ASB has been successful in capturing this growth through our ongoing focus on customer service and relationship management," Jurkovich added.

Among other banks, Westpac grew business and agriculture lending by NZ$226 million in the September quarter, and ANZ's increased by NZ$177 million. Specialist rural lender Rabobank increased gross loans by NZ$204.2 million in the September quarter. And Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which grew corporate lending by 23% in the year to March, saw its book shrink by about NZ$270 million to NZ$2.284 billion in the three months to September 30.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank sector credit data - which doesn't necessarily match the combined bank figures - shows business debt fell NZ$569 million during the September quarter to NZ$77.857 billion. In contrast agriculture debt rose NZ$815 million to NZ$49.426 billion.

ASB's NZ$562 million quarterly growth in combined corporate and rural lending easily outstripped its NZ$318 million increase in residential mortgage lending, which was second to ANZ's NZ$904 million. It comes after ASB reported 6% growth in business lending and 5% growth in rural lending in its financial year to June 30.

But despite recent lending growth being skewed towards businesses and agriculture, the majority of ASB's overall lending book remains in housing. As of September 30 the bank had total advances to customers of NZ$54.160 billion, dropping to NZ$53.958 billion after fair value hedge adjustments and provisions. Some NZ$12.230 billion, or 22.6%, of total lending was to the corporate and rural sectors. A total of NZ$37.726 billion, or 69.6%, stemmed from residential mortgages, and the remaining NZ$4.204 billion, or 7.7%, is attributed to "other retail."

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