Macquarie Group to maintain its tech spend

Macquarie Group expects to keep up its investment levels in technology and other growth opportunities in the short term.

CEO Shemara Wikramanayake.

In its full year 2023 results on Friday, Macquarie Group managing director and chief executive officer, Shemara Wikramanayake said growth of Macquarie's banking and financial services (BFS) unit is expected to continue, necessitating ongoing investment.

“In banking and financial services, we expect growth across the platform in the loan portfolio, in the deposits and the platform volumes," Wikramanayake said.

“But of course, market dynamics will continue to drive margins. and we also expect to keep investing in terms of volume growth in terms of technology and also in terms of regulatory requirements."

In the short-term, higher expenses to support technology investment, volume growth and compliance and regulatory requirements are anticipated.

“We have had big step up in operating expenses, some of it is revenue-driven,” Wikramanayake said, responding to questions from financial analysts.

“In BFS, the way we compete is through [a] digital bank offering and we're constantly investing to keep that at the forefront, but also to keep delivering other offerings and rolling out the digital offering”.

In the medium term, BFS is expected to continue modernising technology to improve its client experience and support growth.

BFS delivered a net profit contribution of $1.201 billion, up 20 percent from $1.001 billion in FY22.

Overall, Macquarie Group recorded a financial year 2023 net profit of $5.182 billion, up 10 percent on FY22, and a second half 2023 net profit of $2.877 million, up 25 percent on the firs half of FY23 and eight percent on the second half of FY22.