---
endpoint: analytics
pattern: Financial Services
status: done
latency_ms: 172495
conversation_id: c4c60a66-d499-48b3-9ac8-4094b7d74c7d
citations: 4
created: 2026-05-31 18:20:57Z
---

# Who are the key customers and suppliers of CBA?

# CBA (Commonwealth Bank of Australia) — Customer Franchise and Funding "Suppliers"

CBA is a bank, so the traditional industrial framing of "customers and suppliers" does not apply cleanly. For a bank, the equivalents are: (1) the **customer franchise** — depositors, borrowers and wealth/insurance clients across reportable segments — and (2) the **funding stack** — the "suppliers" of capital that fund the loan book (customer deposits + wholesale debt + equity). The synthesis below covers both, drawing on CBA's own annual-report disclosures and CLSA's most recent coverage.

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## 1. Customer Base — Reportable Operating Segments

CBA discloses its customers through six business segments. The product/customer composition of each (per CBA's own disclosures):

| Segment | Customer base | Core products |
|---|---|---|
| **Retail Banking Services** | Australian retail customers (mass-market households) | Housing loans, credit cards, personal loans, savings & cheque accounts, demand & term deposits [4] |
| **Business and Private Banking** | SMEs, mid-corporates, rural/agribusiness customers, and high-net-worth individuals | Business loans, deposits, asset finance, private banking, margin lending and trading via CommSec [5] |
| **Institutional Banking and Markets (IB&M)** | Major corporate, institutional and government clients (domestic + offshore) | Debt & equity capital markets, risk management, transactional banking; wholesale operations in London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong [4] |
| **Wealth Management** | Wholesale and retail investors, superannuation members, life-insurance policyholders | Funds management (Colonial First State), super, retirement funds, life/disability/annuity insurance [4] |
| **New Zealand (ASB Bank)** | NZ retail and business customers | Full-service banking, funds management, insurance via ASB Bank and Sovereign [4] |
| **Bankwest** | WA-centric retail and SME customers | Full-service domestic bank (historical disclosure) [4] |

The broader competitive landscape into which CBA sells: "**Financial services providers in Australia offer a wide range of products and services to consumer and business customers, encompassing retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and stockbroking services**" [7]. CBA competes against the other Big Four (ANZ, NAB, WBC), regional banks, building societies/credit unions, foreign banks, and third-party distributors.

### Current customer-base growth (per CLSA, 1H25 / 1H FY25)

CBA's customer franchise continues to outgrow the system across most key categories. CLSA's published volume scorecard for 1H25 vs system:

| Category | CBA HoH growth | System HoH growth |
|---|---|---|
| Home lending | **3.2%** | 2.7% |
| Business lending | **5.7%** | 4.8% |
| Household deposits | **6.9%** | 6.9% |
| Business deposits | (1.3%) | 1.4% [2] |

In the Sep-24 quarter alone, "**CBA saw strong credit growth across its book… Business lending grew +A$2.1bn, while in the retail bank, household deposits grew +A$14.9bn and the home lending book increased +A$8.6bn**" [3]. Across the four-bank major-bank share registry, CBA holds the largest **domestic retail** investor share at ~47.5% (Dec-24) — a structural source of "sticky" retail-investor demand [8].

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## 2. Funding "Suppliers" — Where the Balance Sheet Is Funded

A bank's "suppliers" of cash are the providers of its liabilities. CBA's funding stack has three layers:

### (a) Customer deposits — the dominant funding source
Customer deposits are the largest single funding source, structurally rising as a share of liabilities. CBA itself disclosed in FY20: "**We are now 74% deposit funded, up from 69% just last year and almost 20 percentage points higher since the global financial crisis**" [6]. Within deposits:
- **Household deposits** (retail savings, transaction accounts, term deposits) — CBA holds the highest share of stable household deposits in Australia [5].
- **Business deposits** (corporate transaction balances, SME, agri).
- **Institutional deposits** (corporate/government cash management, sourced through IB&M).

### (b) Wholesale debt markets
Long-term unsecured senior debt, covered bonds, RMBS, and subordinated/Tier-2 instruments issued to global institutional investors. CBA reduced wholesale issuance as deposits grew: "**Debt issues decreased 5% compared to the prior year… Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, debt issues decreased 6% due to lower wholesale funding needs as deposit growth remained strong**" [5]. Wholesale funding counterparties include domestic and offshore institutional bond investors, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, central banks (FX reserves), and other banks (interbank/repo).

### (c) Equity capital
Shareholder funds (~A$73bn at FY24, projected ~A$76.5bn FY25; share registry skewed toward Australian retail and superannuation funds [8]).

### Margin dynamics across the funding "supplier" mix (1H25, per CLSA)
Funding-side cost pressure is the dominant 1H25 NIM driver. Per CLSA's 1H25 review: "**Retail banking services margin fell from 2.50% in 2H24 to 2.49% in 1H25 due to increased competition and unfavourable deposit mix as customers switch to higher yielding deposits and higher funding costs**" [1]. Business banking margin compressed from 3.37% → 3.36%, while IB&M margin actually expanded from 1.71% → 1.96% on "**higher deposit and equity earnings and favourable asset mix from growth in the lending portfolio, partly offset by lower structured and institutional lending margins due to higher funding costs**" [1].

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## 3. Caveat on Framing

Sell-side and corporate disclosures do **not** organize CBA around a "key customers" or "key suppliers" schema — those concepts apply to industrial/manufacturing names with concentrated counterparties (e.g., a chip supplier to Apple). For a universal bank:
- Customer concentration risk is **low** — CBA's book is granular across millions of retail/SME accounts; only the IB&M wholesale book has any single-name concentration (corporate/government lending counterparties, not disclosed individually for confidentiality).
- Supplier concentration risk is also **low** — deposits are highly granular; wholesale funding is sourced from a diversified global institutional investor base.

If you intended a different "CBA" (e.g., a specific corporate name) or want a granular IB&M counterparty list, supplier ecosystem of tech vendors (e.g., core banking systems, payments rails like Mastercard/Visa/eftpos, cloud providers), or a comparison vs. ANZ/WBC/NAB on customer mix, please clarify.

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**Sources**
[1] CBA - U-PF (Solid but headwinds to increase) — CLSA, 12 Feb 2025 — 607950441LinqAlpha.PDF
[2] CBA - U-PF (Solid but headwinds to increase) — CLSA, 12 Feb 2025 — 607950441LinqAlpha.PDF (Figure 7, HoH volume growth vs system)
[3] CBA - HLD (Solid earnings trends hold) — CLSA, 13 Nov 2024 — 607944223LinqAlpha.PDF
[4] Commonwealth Bank of Australia Annual Report 2009 — Segment disclosures (Note 32)
[5] Commonwealth Bank of Australia Annual Report 2019 — Divisional performance
[6] Commonwealth Bank of Australia Annual Report 2020 — CEO commentary on funding mix
[7] Commonwealth Bank of Australia Annual Report 2007 — Description of business environment
[8] CBA - U-PF (Solid but headwinds to increase) — CLSA, 12 Feb 2025 — 607950441LinqAlpha.PDF (Figure 17, Major Bank share-registry split)

## Citations

- [4] **Commonwealth Bank of Australia, H2 2009 Report** · external
- [5] **2019 Annual Report** · external
- [6] **CBA 2020 Annual Report** · external
- [7] **Commonwealth Bank of Australia, H2 2007 Report** · external

