{"id":902795,"date":"2026-11-02T03:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T03:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/902795\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T03:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T03:10:11","slug":"westpac-reports-full-year-profit-of-6-8-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/902795\/","title":{"rendered":"Westpac reports full year profit of $6.8 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A big four bank has warned that the inflation battle is far from over while politicians fear jobs and businesses will be lost after the Reserve Bank of Australia\u2019s (RBA) expected rate rise<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Westpac<\/a> chief executive Anthony Miller said he expects the central bank to keep pursuing the battle to bring inflation down as his bank reported a flat annual profit of nearly $7 billion.<\/p>\n

\"Westpac<\/p>\n

Westpac on Monday reported a full-year profit of $6.8 billion.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the Reserve Bank very actively go after that challenge … with four rates increases and likely one or two more from here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s second-largest mortgage lender<\/a> recorded a net profit for the year to September 30 of $6.8 billion, down 1 per cent.<\/p>\n

Westpac\u2019s cash profit, excluding one-off items, came in at $7 billion. The full year dividend was $1.54 per share.<\/p>\n

The Westpac results, announced on Monday, come a day ahead a widely forecast rise in interest rates, when the RBA is expected to lift the cash rate to 4.85 per cent. <\/p>\n

The move would add more than $6000 to annual payments on an average mortgage, reports the Australian Financial Review<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That would leave households shelling out the largest chunk of income to service mortgages on a median-priced home since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

RBA Governor Michele Bullock in September declared that \u201cthe board will increase interest rates again if that\u2019s what\u2019s needed to get inflation down\u201d.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Nine newspapers last week that raising interest rates was a \u201cblunt instrument\u201d in a rare remark against the Reserve Bank of Australia. <\/p>\n

NSW Premier Chris Minns has followed, warning that jobs and businesses would be lost if the central bank raises rates as markets expect on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think this is a straightforward decision,\u201d he told reporters on Monday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of another rate rise on the New South Wales economy will be massive. There\u2019ll be jobs that go that will never come back. There\u2019ll be shops that close that do not reopen with another rate rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t be flippant about this, this is a very, very tough call for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller warned that the four rate rises this year, coupled with Labor\u2019s tax changes from May, have had an impact on the property market.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve been in this situation before… in fact, since 2008, we\u2019ve had four (downturns),\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing we need to keep in front of us … is that the demand for housing in Australia far exceeds the supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller was generally upbeat about the performance of the Australian economy, pointing to strong business investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of that is going to investment in Australia to improve the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higher inflation sticking around<\/p>\n

In the short term, the markets are pricing in an 82 per cent chance of another interest rate hike, when the results of the RBA two-day board meeting are announced at 2.30pm on Tuesday, which is also Melbourne Cup day.<\/p>\n

Inflation remains way ahead of the RBA\u2019s target range of 2 per cent to 3 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Headline inflation surged more than expected, to 4.3 per cent in the 12 months to September.<\/p>\n

The RBA is using rate hikes to deliberately squeeze household budgets, hoping that if families hurt enough, they\u2019ll be forced to spend less, which will bring down inflation.<\/p>\n

The central bank\u2019s strategy relies on Australians cutting back but the latest figures show they already have, with household spending stalled.<\/p>\n

Get the news you need straight to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A big four bank has warned that the inflation battle is far from over while politicians fear jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-902795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}