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Speaker 1: Now, Westpac's net profit has jumped ten percent for the

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Speaker 1: first half of the year. For the company's new New

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Speaker 1: Zealand arm. The interest rates have been coming down, obviously,

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Speaker 1: but the bank's margins on interest rates have gone up slightly,

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Speaker 1: up zero point one six percent compared to the same

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Speaker 1: period last year. In Australia the margins actually declined. West

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Speaker 1: Pac CEO is Katherine mcgrahey.

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Speaker 2: Catherine, Hi here, That great to be back.

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Speaker 1: Hey, thank you very much for your time. What's driving

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Speaker 1: your profit up?

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Speaker 2: So if you look at it versus the previous period, yes,

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Speaker 2: it has gone up about ten percent in that period

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Speaker 2: of time, But if you look at it over the

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Speaker 2: past six months, a net profit has actually gone down

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Speaker 2: by nine percent, and that's reflecting revenues have been flat,

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Speaker 2: particularly with strong competition in the deposit market. Our costs

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Speaker 2: have gone up and impairment has gone up as well.

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Speaker 1: And so what's going on here with the margins rising

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand but going down in Australia. Why is that.

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Speaker 2: So? One of it's important to compare apples with apples.

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Speaker 2: The Australian business has a big Internet proponents to it

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Speaker 2: which we don't have here and so if I look

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Speaker 2: at the relevant parts of the Australian business to New Zealand, one,

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Speaker 2: our net interest margin is lower, and then the reasons

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Speaker 2: ours have edged up about three points over the past

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Speaker 2: six months. We've seen some better funding decisions have been taken,

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Speaker 2: which has been really helpful.

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Speaker 1: Interested in the fact that you've called out the social

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Speaker 1: media companies on scams, what's what's what's got you upset there?

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Speaker 2: One of the things I'd love to see them do

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Speaker 2: is to make sure that when they take advertising dollars

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Speaker 2: for financial services ads, that they check that those ads

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Speaker 2: are for genuine financial services providers. We know that investment

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Speaker 2: scams are the ones that hurt keeps the most for

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Speaker 2: an amount of money, and so we'd love them to

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Speaker 2: use their great technology to verify that they're taking money

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Speaker 2: from people who are actually financial services organizations.

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Speaker 1: They're under no obligation to do that, are they.

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Speaker 2: No? But if I can go through a piece of

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Speaker 2: break to try and identify that payment that you intend

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Speaker 2: to make isn't really one that you want to make,

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Speaker 2: which is what we're doing in the New Zealand banking industry.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it's a hard ass to say that

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Speaker 2: media platforms should make sure that they verify that who

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Speaker 2: they're taking money from are advertising actually for financial services,

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Speaker 2: not fake ads.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you, I mean I would say that that's because

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Speaker 1: you've been pressured into it publicly, right, you actually care

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Speaker 1: about what your customers think. They don't care, they have

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Speaker 1: and they have no real there's no real impetus, right that.

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Speaker 1: There's what I mean, what does it matter if we

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Speaker 1: think badly of them? We keep on using them, right,

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Speaker 1: So there's nothing to there's nothing really to pressure them

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Speaker 1: into this position, is there.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the government is starting to do a

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Speaker 2: good job at putting that pressure on and it's been

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Speaker 2: really good to see that one of those platforms has

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Speaker 2: done that. And so our wit judgement is that Google

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Speaker 2: has done that and they are verifying all ads. We

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Speaker 2: would think that was great if all of those technology

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Speaker 2: platforms demonstrate the same social responsibility to help people stop

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Speaker 2: being scammed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, I agree with you. Now listen, when are

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Speaker 1: you guys going to be paying that penalty post the

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Speaker 1: court case?

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Speaker 2: So that will be in the process. Now, that's from

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Speaker 2: a very historic issue. Not good when we offered something

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Speaker 2: and we couldn't follow through with it. In terms of

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Speaker 2: our system, but we've worked very closely with the Financial

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Speaker 2: Markets Authority. All of those customers have had any money

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Speaker 2: paid back, and it's not a forward looking issue from

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Speaker 2: our perspective.

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Speaker 1: Cal Catherine, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Katherine mcgrass, CEO of Voice.

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Speaker 2: Pac For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live

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Speaker 2: to news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.