NZ banks likely to scale bank lending growth in 2017 as margin squeeze hits bottom line

Wed, 15 Feb 2017

By Paul McBeth Feb. 16 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand banks are likely to wind back the pace of new lending this year as a margin squeeze caused by higher capital requirements for the big four Australian-owned banks and greater use of more expensive wholesale funding weighed on lenders' profits last year. The country's licensed lenders grew their loan books at the fastest pace in eight years in 2016, with $393.6 billion of loans and advances as at Dec. 31 from $364 billion a year earlier, according to KPMG's financial institutions performa...

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