Kiwibank succeeding in maverick disruptor role by growing market share, CEO Steve Jurkovich says

Kiwibank is doing more to disrupt the big four New Zealand banks than the much hyped Macquarie is in Australia, "percentage-wise," Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich says.

In a move endorsed by the Government, the Commerce Commission said in 2024 Kiwibank ought to be the "maverick disrupter" in the personal banking market competing against the big four banks, - ANZ New Zealand, ASB, BNZ and Westpac NZ.

Speaking with Jurkovich after Kiwibank posted its annual financial results on Thursday, interest.co.nz asked how the maverick role is going two years on.

"I think when you take 11% [home loan market] share, you grow business banking by 11% [too], you know, we are growing faster and doing a better job of disrupting the four big competitors than Macquarie is in Australia percentage-wise. And they get some pretty good coverage about being the disruptor," Jurkovich says.

"[And] I think if you look at our performance on bad debts, we are doing so safely."

Kiwibank says 0.27% of its gross loans and advances were at least 90 days past due at June 30, and another 0.18% were impaired.

"We're in front of 1,550-odd [mortgage] advisors and growing our everyday activity with them the whole time. I think we're doing as good a job as I can find around the world. But we're not doing it in the way that people love the headline of a Revolut or someone else coming into town, when their actual impact on the competition so far in most markets has been pretty muted compared to what we've been able to do," says Jurkovich.

"But I mean, people always look at disruption like, why aren't you bigger than them? I would say, for instance a disruption and a disruptor is [also] letting people get what they think they're gonna get on their online savings accounts, for instance."

In Australia Macquarie Bank's aggressive expansion in the residential mortgage market, competing with the parents of NZ's big four banks, has been making regular headlines. This includes the suggestion Macquarie could even overtake one of the big four, with Mei Dong, Professor in Economics at the University of Melbourne, noting Macquarie has grown mortgage market share from 0.19% in 2010 to 7.33% as of June this year.

The charts below come from Kiwibank's annual results investor presentation.

2) Lending growth figures are calculated based on gross loans and advances excluding direct transaction costs, and so will differ from loans and advances per the Disclosure Statement.
3) System figures are based on the Reserve Bank’s statistical series for registered banks (loans – S31 series; deposits – S40 series) and adjusted for series breaks where applicable. Market share is Kiwibank’s total divided by System total at period end.

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