Bank of Western Australia used a minor media stunt at the opening of a new branch in Melbourne's Bourke Street mall yesterday to rebut rumours that the bank may be on the market.Ian Corfield, chief executive of the retail division of BankWest, said of the planned opening of 50 retail outlets in Victoria and the the effort to recruit another 700 staff in the state, "it is not usually the actions of a bank being sold to create this many jobs and open this many stores.'We absolutely are on track to have 35 to 40 more [branches] open by the end of the year."Another couple of branches, or stores as BankWest likes to call their white and orange, mobile-phone shop style outlets, will open in Melbourne this week.The Herald Sun last week reported that HBOS "is believed to be reviewing the future of its BankWest subsidiary" in Australia. Asked about that Corfield said "we don't comment on speculation all the time but in my view there's no merit in those rumours."Corfield said "business  is very good actually. As you know the savings markets is very competitive at the moment. We've managed to attract some big liabilities."APRA data shows that BankWest has had next to no growth in household deposits over three three months to March 2008, and has seen deposits decline slightly from businesses.Deposit growth is stronger more recently, though, according to Corfield."What's interesting is that over the last half its really, recall strong.  I'm also saying our credit card performance, our mortgage performance is absolutely stellar."Margins in Australia for retail banks continue to be wide, they continue to be attractive and whilst ever that's the case that will give us options to undercut and offer better products to customers."Despite everything going on over the last 12 months they continue to be attractive."