Westpac provided clearer data than other banks on the rising stress in its lending portfolio, and the trends in a couple of pockets of the bank's business are rather stark.The bank's managing director Gail Kelly said that stressed exposures  in Australia (impaired, 90 days past due, watchlist and substandard loans) as a percentage of total committed exposures rose sharply from around 1.6 per cent at the end of the December quarter to close to three per cent at the end of the June quarter.Then the pace of growth slowed in the September quarter and stressed exposures were 3.1 per cent at the end of the financial year.However, at St George Bank 12 per cent of business loans are stressed.Kelly said of the top 24 impaired assets at St George, on loans of $10 million or more, 20 of those were in property. Eleven of those are in Western Australia."There's a bit of an overconcentration in property in Western Australia that's been built up over the last few years," she said.Westpac is now applying its credit practices to the St George portfolio.Stressed loans are rising fastest for Westpac in New Zealand, where the indicator increased 855 basis points to 16.2 per cent over 2009.Westpac NZ is strengthening accreditation requirements for all lending roles.Watchlist and substandard business exposures in New Zealand increased to 14.4 per cent, up 731 bps, and the top 10 stressed exposures increased by 90 bps to four per cent of the business total committed exposure.Other initiatives include implementing pre-watchlist reviews in business banking to identify companies in the very early stages of stress.While these indicators show there are plenty of customers to manage actively, the workload may have peaked.Kelly said: "We are at the top of this impairment cycle. More customers have used this period to reduce risk in their business and overall it is stabilising."