Australia’s Westpac to hire 350 more bankers to win business lending market share

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By Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp aims to hire 350 bankers in the next two years to help gain business banking market share and close the gap on its major rivals, it said on Tuesday.

The bank had hired 135 business bankers so far this year, Paul Fowler, Westpac’s chief executive of business banking and wealth told an analyst briefing.

Westpac, Australia’s second-largest bank by market capitalisation, had a 16.1% business lending market share in July, up from 15.3% the same time last year, according to regulatory figures released last week.

It sits third behind National Australia Bank with 21.6% and the country’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank, with 18.85%, the figures showed.

Westpac and CBA are targeting NAB’s stronghold on business banking by offering reduced lending rates to get customers to switch banks, according to analysts, at a time when the bank is undergoing major change.

NAB’s business banking head Andrew Auerbach began in June and has previously not run a business banking division and that makes it vulnerable to competitors trying to pinch market share, analysts say.

NAB will hold a business banking briefing on Wednesday.

Fowler said Westpac’s business and wealth division recorded a net profit of A$1.1 billion ($714.78 million) in the first half of the current financial year, making it the largest contributor to the bank’s A$3.3 billion net profit.

“Almost a decade ago, Westpac held a leading position in business banking in this country. Since that time, we’ve had times where we lost focus and we’ve conceded considerable ground,” Fowler said.

“… we’ve made a decision, a strategic decision, to tilt towards business banking.”

Fowler joined Westpac in May after 10 years at CBA.

($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)