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Banks lend super contributions to customers 29 August 2008
Superannuation contributions are being channelled through the wealth management arms of banks and life companies via cash account and term deposit options into their lending businesses. AMP reported yesterday that its banking business received 34 per cent of its funding from retail deposits, 46 per cent from wholesale funding and 20 per cent from superannuation contributions. This may be a factor in AMP Banking's strong mortgage lending growth over the past six months. The mortgage book has increased from $8.1 billion at the end of last year to $9.1 billion at the end of June – a 24.7 per cent annualised growth rate. Other lenders to report strong increases in funding from super contributions include St George, through its wealth management arm Asgard, Westpac through BT Super and ANZ through ING Australia and some third-party deals. St George Bank reported at a market update earlier this month that it had grown its retail deposit book by almost 19 per cent to $55.3 billion over the past year and in the process has been able to reduce its demand for funds from other sources. Some analysts doubt the quality of this new funding source on the grounds that banks count super contributions as retail deposits but in reality the internal transfer mechanism that got the money from the super fund to the bank was a wholesale transaction. In other words it is expensive wholesale money that provides a low margin. ANZ managing director of investment and insurance products Geoff Cohen said the deposits sit on the bank's balance sheet and are treated as retail deposits in the same way that a term deposit transacted at a branch would be treated.
