National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) which currently is Australia's fourth largest bank by market capitalisation, today delivered $5.5 billion cash earnings beating analyst consensus forecasts of $5.4 billion.
Group cash earnings increased by 19.2% to $5.5 billion, which the bank said was largely driven by revenue momentum in Business Banking and Personal Banking in Australia and an improved performance from Specialised Group Assets. New Zealand Banking, United Kingdom Banking and Great Western Bank also contributed.
Revenue increased by 5.7% to $17.6 billion mainly as a result of increases in Personal Banking and Business Banking and lower mark-to-market losses on the Synthetic Collateralised Debt Obligations (SCDO) risk mitigation trades.
The Group charge for bad and doubtful debts fell by $441 million to $1.8 billion reflecting lower charges in Personal Banking, UK Banking, NZ Banking and Specialised Group Assets.
The Group’s objective of maintaining a strong capital position the Tier 1 capital ratio increased from 8.91% to 9.70%. The Core Tier 1 ratio also increased from 6.80% to 7.58%.
The final fully franked dividend increased 5% to $0.88.