BANKWEST announced an after-tax profit of $48.3 million for the six months to August 1996, up from $45.9 million for the same period the year before. Controlled by the Bank of Scotland, the Perth-based regional bank recorded a 2.3 per cent higher result than the figure included in its prospectus forecast for the 1996-97 full year. But the bank warned that interest margins would be further squeezed in the second half of the year, pressured by intensifying competition in the housing loans market. Despite the call, it said the WA economy was still benefiting from fairly buoyant conditions in the resources sector and predicted the boom would spread to other business sectors in the state, reaping even more benefits for BankWest.