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| Anita Petty helps a customer at one of the National’s Melbourne CBD branches. |
This year provided challenges for the business, as we experienced some negative impact on the National’s brand and reputation following the unauthorised trading in foreign currency options and related issues.
Our share of home loan lending declined, and there was also a decrease in the likelihood of non-National customers choosing the National when selecting a new financial institution. In January 2004, home lending policies were tightened in the face of a slowing property market. Our share of business banking also remained flat over the year.
To drive business growth and development, we focused on improving the customer experience.
Financial Services Australia recorded a net profit# of $1,868 million, which was flat against the previous year.
Customer focus
Despite the issues we faced in business banking, we are a leading supplier of business banking services to the small and medium enterprise market* and to the agribusiness market**.
Business lending volumes increased by 8.8%, with agribusiness lending volumes increasing by 12.8% over the 12 month period.
In the 2003 year, changes were made to our relationship platform in our business banking unit. These changes were not well received by customers and we undertook a review of this operating platform. We consequently made modifications to the way we interact with customers and these changes are expected to be in place by early 2005. In our personal banking unit, we pro-actively contacted home loan and deposit customers, generating significant sales opportunities.
We also reached a major milestone during the year, recording more than $100 billion in finance lending for households.
We are reviewing processes and implementing new systems to improve customer service. We completed the rollout of our electronic business lending capability across Australia, which is a time-saving electronic alternative to manual business lending processes.
We reviewed and improved branch and credit processes for frontline staff so they could spend less time on administration and more time serving customers.
A renewed focus on staff sales and service up-skilling was represented through continued investment in skills and compliance training.
New products and services
We introduced a range of new products during the year:
- SMART accounts, offering flat fee transaction accounts. Available since July 2004, the accounts have grown at an average of more than 1,000 applications per day, with more than 74,700 accounts opened as at September 30 2004
- Two new credit cards, which operate on the American Express network, called the Ant Card with Rewards, providing our best rewards program, and the Ant Card with No Annual Fee
- An improved Farmers Choice Package, providing long-term interest-only finance
We ran a number of competitive marketing campaigns, improving rates for the National Cash Management Accelerator Account, which increased deposits by 15% over a five month period, personal loan campaigns, which saw a 15% lift in sales on the previous year, and a focus on farm management term deposits, which have grown 19% since May 2003.
Building on the success of last year’s Drought Breaker Forum for agribusiness clients, we held an Agri Trade forum, which attracted more than 1,500 customers across 60 locations. A similar event was held for business customers.
We also drove the production of an industry merchant fraud video, which was mailed to more than 10,000 customers and available online to help educate merchants on fraud prevention.
Improving accessibility
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| Vickie Ly (Service Specialist), serves a customer at the 330 Collins Street, Melbourne branch. |
We continued to upgrade branches and build Integrated Financial Service Centres (IFSCs), refurbishing 50 branches and building a further 14 IFSCs across Australia. We also opened a Rural Transaction Centre at Quambatook in north-west Victoria.
As part of refurbishment works, ramps, automatic doors, lowered benches and ATMs are installed to assist customers with special needs. More than 630 audio-enabled automatic teller machines (ATMs) for vision impaired customers have been installed, with the remaining ATMs scheduled for completion by 2006.
Motivating staff and building community links
In March 2004, most of our head office staff started relocating to the Australian operations’ new headquarters at Docklands, Melbourne. The building was designed to facilitate teamwork, interaction and productivity, and increase employee motivation by providing an excellent working environment.
Our volunteering initiative of two days paid leave each year for staff to undertake voluntary work in the community continued to gain support, with more than 4,900 days in paid volunteer leave approved over the year.
# Net profit attributable to members of the Company before significant items.
* Sources: APRA Monthly Banking Statistics, September 2004 – Measured by share of business lending, bills (APRA definitions exclude bank held bills) and business deposits. TNS Business Finance Monitor, September 2004 – Measured by share of business lending and deposits over the 12 months to September 2004 of businesses with less than $100 million turnover.
** Source: TNS Business Finance Monitor, September 2004 – Measured by share of agribusiness lending and deposits over the 12 months to September 2004 of businesses with less than $100 million turnover.
Click here to download a PDF of the Concise Annual Report 2004 (2,596KB)
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