Westpac has promoted Yianna Papanikolaou to the newly created position of chief transformation officer. Papanikolaou, who joined the bank recently as general manager, group transformation office, will have responsibility for major change and investment programs, and accountability for the Customer Outcomes and Risk Excellence Program, which the bank has been running since Austrac and APRA investigations revealed extensive systems and management failures. Before joining Westpac she was chief transformation officer at Deutsche Bank in the UK. She has also had senior roles at Royal Bank of Scotland and Accenture. Business finance company Earlypay has received an increase in the facility limit of its primary invoice finance warehouse, which has risen from A$125 million to $200 million. The company reported in its December half financial result that invoice finance volumes rose 35 per cent, compared with the previous corresponding period, to $1.2 billion. It said the increased facility will allow it to maintain this “unprecedented” growth. The RBNZ is seeking feedback on policy options for mutual banks in New Zealand to issue capital instruments, as part of the follow up to its Capital Review of banks. “One unresolved issue from the review was to consider developing a bespoke capital instrument for mutual banks which could qualify as Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital,” deputy governor Christian Hawkesby said. Currently, mutual banks in New Zealand are not able to issue such instruments without compromising their mutual status.  “Stakeholders have told us that the inability of mutual banks to issue CET1 capital instruments makes it difficult for those banks to raise high-quality, loss-absorbing capital efficiently. They’ve told us that this restricts mutual banks’ lending growth as it adversely impacts their ability to compete on a level playing field,” Hawkesby said. The RBNZ has released a consultation paper seeking stakeholder’s views on two policy options with submissions open until 10 June 2022.