By Alice Uribe


SYDNEY--Commonwealth Bank of Australia posted a fall in unaudited third-quarter net profit even as it showed growth in home and business loans.

Australia's biggest bank by market value and the country's largest mortgage lender on Thursday reported an unaudited net profit after tax of 2.3 billion Australian dollars (US$1.6 billion) for the January-March quarter. The result was a 4.2% fall from the A$2.4 billion unaudited profit reported a year earlier.

Cash earnings--the measure followed by analysts that strips out items including losses or gains on acquisitions and asset sales--totalled A$2.4 billion, which was flat versus the average of the previous two quarters.

CBA said that income was down 1.0% in the third quarter, but 3.0% volume growth and higher non-interest income helped to offset "continued margin pressure from elevated swap rates, mix effects and competition."

"The March quarter underlined the disciplined execution of the group strategy,focused on our core banking franchises," said Chief Executive Matt Comyn. "Continued growth in household deposits, home loans, business lending and business deposits was a feature of the quarter."

CBA said its decision to lead the market on home loan interest rate increases softened new home lending volumes. Fixed rate loans as a proportion of new fundings dropped to to 27% in March from 47% in the first half of fiscal 2022.

The bank said domestic business lending grew by almost 13% over the 12 months to March 2022, and deposits growth continued, with household and business deposits increasing by A$8.5 billion and $2.2 billion respectively in the quarter.

CBA said that home loan arrears remained low in the quarter, spurred partly by the quality of the originations, low interest rates and strong property markets. Credit card and personal arrears began to normalize in the quarter in line with seasonal trends, CBA said.

Total credit provisions were slightly lower at A$5.7 billion in the third quarter from the previous quarter, CBA reported. It said that it was "continuing to maintain a cautious approach to managing potential risks, including higher interest rates, inflationary pressures, and supply chain disruptions."

CBA reported a common equity tier 1 ratio of 11.1%, which was down 9 basis points in the quarter, after paying A$3 billion in first-hald dividends to shareholders.

Write to Alice Uribe at alice.uribe@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-11-22 1848ET