Personal and business banking

Peter Wharton-Hood head of personal and business banking at Standard Bank - is a fairly happy man, at least in comparison to his colleague Ben Kruger.

The banking environment in the last three years has been great for retail customers and the fundamentals remain positive. The Q3 growth rate was 5% increase, on top of a 7% increase for the preceeding quarter. Customers seem to be finding debt affordable and consequently they spent more, he says.

Details of market share:

ThegroupsmarketshareinSouthAfricaincreasedincreditcarddebtorsto 35,1%(2004:32,8%)anddecreasedinmortgagelending,downmarginallyto

25,6%(2004:25,8%)andininstallmentfinancedownto20,3%(2004:22,1%).

Both mortgage lendingandinstallmentfinancemarketsharestatisticswereimpactedbysecuritisations,which

reducedtheratiosby0,6%and1,1%.

Home loans and asset finance numbers are distoring the banking statistics in the reporting to the Reserve Bank, and this is due to securitization. Market share is 35% for cards which he says is not maintainable, and competitors are already taking market share away.

Cards in issue are up and headline earnings for this area are up to just over R400m.

The home loans business is slightly down at 27% - and maintenance of this level is defendable. On the home loans front he says that the 11% increase in registrations doesnt match the applications received due to the originators pushing applications to various institutions and the tighter credit control.

He says they are not being short-sighted about their relationships with originators, and will build relationships.

There are challenges in the vehicle and asset finance areas is challenging, with competitors taking bites. While there motor book increased by 29%, compared to the industry growth of 26%, the non motor market share dropped to 33%.

There has been good growth in transaction levels in most account categories, and lending products growth was also sound, while retail deposits were also up, although not as significantly.

MigrationtoelectronicbankingiscontinuingasthenumberofInternettransactionsincreased

by85%andthenumberofnewInternetusersincreasedby 27%. Increased deal flow benefitedthecorporatefinanceadvisorybusinessand contributed significantly to growth in knowledge-basedfees.