We got it wrong, says Westpac. Farmers, country towns deserve special attention

Westpac CEO Anthony Miller says they want to expand their footprint in regional Australia

Transcript

00:00Look, our goal is to really expand our footprint in regional Australia and grow our agricultural

00:05business. We've had 21% growth in the last 12 months, which I was really pleased with,

00:09and I think there's a lot more upside for us as we get Westpac to where I think it should be

00:14Australia's oldest bank with the legacy we have in regional Australia. Regional Australia for me

00:18is a really big important part of what we want to go after at the bank. For some jurisdictions it

00:23is the case that we need to have a permanent points of presence and then we can do that

00:28effectively and we can deliver a return for the shareholder but also deliver for the customer in

00:33that community. In other situations it's turned out that it may make sense for us to have a visited

00:37office arrangement and we're there one day a fortnight or three days every month etc and we'll

00:43work that out. And then other situations it might make sense for us to combine that

00:48semi-permanent presence with a visited office where we have a mobile banking, whether that be

00:54a reconditioned bus to deliver services into the right towns at the right time. So what we're going

00:59to do is challenge ourselves to come up with the best solution for each particular region that we

01:04enter. When I continue to see what I'm seeing in regional Australia I'm really hopeful for the

01:09future of the country. The innovation, the resilience, the capacity of people in the bush to get things

01:14done is extraordinary and you know I think it's really good risk for the bank and I'm really keen for

01:18the bank to grow in that area.