Ans 1

Yes I am completely agreered with the sentence because there is similarity in both the cases

In March 2006 when cyclone Larry swept across northern Queensland and wiped-out more than 2
lakhs tons of banana crop and has resulted in price hike in banana by 250%. In the june 2006
someway it is belief that sudden spike in the price of bananas along with high petrol prices
contributed to push inflation to an 11 years high.

Because of the devastating storm the price of banana went up and it cause more to make a banana
smoothie, resulted in price hike by 50 cent.

Same way due to global financial crisis, reserve bank of Australia started to cut the official cash rate
from as high as 7.25% p.a. in September 2008 to 3.00% by April 2009. And again started raising in
October 2009 with the mild downturn, the strength of economy and the need to return rates back to
normal level motivating its decision later on again rba has raised cash rate by 25 basis point in
December 2009 in response to that Westpac also raised its rate by 45 basis points across its variable
mortgage rate which nearly double the RBA’s rate

Ans.2

No, the decision to draw such parity did not hurt the brand image of Westpac. According to survey
about Brand Image of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks by “The Age” Westpac was the second in 2009.

Moreover; Empirical studies show customer retention rates have multiplying effect on retail banking
profit and are difficult to maintain. Westpac actively manage its brand image in spite of thousands of
customers moved to other banks after closing down of “Bank of Melbourne’. According to Westpac’s
CEO Gail Kelly, bank was pursuing multi brand strategy to grow its share of the personal banking
market across a range of customer segment

Customer would not leave the bank as Westpac has set to open a way to revive the bank of Melbourne
brand as an online financial deposit service. Bank’s intention towards implementing a project which
expand the short term market and thus retail banking profit.

Potential customer will be benefited as Westpac came up with a series of home loan discounts to
soften the impact of its larger than average rate rise as National Landers do face higher landing cost
from the deposit market and for rolling over long term debt.
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