Australia's biggest banking group, the Commonwealth Bank, on Wednesday posted a record full-year net profit despite subdued revenue growth with customers cautious about global instability. The country's top home lender said profit for the 12 months ending June 30 rose 11 percent to Aus$7.09 billion (US $7.43 billion), from Aus$6.39 billion the year before.
Cash profit - which strips out one-off costs - was Aus$7.11 billion, up four percent. Revenue rose two percent to Aus$47.2 billion. "This is a good result given the uncertain environment in which we are operating," said chief executive Ian Narev, with the company's share price rising 0.92 percent to Aus$56.05 in a falling market. "As expected, revenue growth was subdued reflecting ongoing caution from both our retail and corporate customers. This translated into lower credit growth and greater pressure on market sensitive businesses." Despite this, the profit was among the largest ever for an Australian bank, boosted by a continuing fall in its provisions for bad debts.
"It is a big absolute number, but we are a big business," said Narev. Narev added that given the uncertain outlook for both the global and Australian economies, "we remain cautious with a strong balance sheet with high levels of capital, provisioning and liquidity".