WILLING TON: New Zealand’s four major Australian owned banks paid nearly $3.5 billion in dividends to their parent companies last year – a 28 per cent jump on 2016.
Disclosure documents for ANZ, Westpac and BNZ for the year to September 30 collectively paid $2.74 billion while ASB, which runs to a different financial cycle paid its Australian owner Commonwealth Bank $450m in the year to June 30.
ANZ – the country’s largest bank – paid the biggest dividend at $1.695b to its Australian parent in the year to September 30 – that was up from $1.36b the prior year.
While ASB paid the smallest dividend at $450m although that was still more than double the $200m it paid in the previous year.