Christmas crunch looms for SMEs, warns new Westpac business boss
Westpac’s brand-new business banking boss Anthony Miller says the fate of many struggling small firms will hinge on the Christmas and new year trading period when consumers will absorb further potential tightening from the Reserve Bank next week.
Mr Miller, the former head of Westpac’s institutional division, who took over business lending in an executive reshuffle in July, said that small and medium-sized enterprises were largely resilient. Even so, he admitted “there has been an increase in hardship and stress” lately.
Mr Miller’s move to the business bank fired the starting gun on a succession battle when current Westpac CEO Peter King eventually decides to retire. Oscar Colman
This quarter is critical for the economy.
The RBA has increased interest rates 4 percentage points since May 2022 to 4.1 per cent. While it is widely tipped to lift the cash rate again next Tuesday, the lag effect of monetary policy means borrowers are still absorbing the last upward moves.
“The next three to six months will be very important,” Mr Miller, in his first interview since taking up the new role, told The Australian Financial Review.
“The key risk is that we are, in a retail sense, coming into a very busy part of the year and, depending on how these businesses perform, the knock-on effects of good or bad performance will be felt more widely. That will help show whether there is a consumer confidence drop or not.”
Westpac will on Monday deliver its annual results, the first financials since reshaping its executive team, providing a more detailed look inside the business bank.
As part of that reshuffle, it separated the consumer and business segments for the first time since 2021, when they were combined under former executive Chris de
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