The bank announced unaudited cash earnings of $1.5 billion for the quarter – up two per cent compared to the quarterly average of the March 2013 half-year result.
On a cash earnings basis, revenue increased by one per cent “reflecting good growth in mortgages and some improvement in customer margin”.
Morningstar analyst David Ellis described the revenue increase as “modest” as a result of “weak business lending activity offset by good mortgage growth and minor improvement in customer interest margins”.
Bad and doubtful debts for the quarter were $489 million, down 10 per cent due to lower charges in NAB’s Business Banking division and its UK businesses.
Expenses were up two per cent over the quarter, including upfront implementation costs relating to previously announced changes to NAB’s organisational structure.
NAB has raised approximately $23.2 billion in term wholesale funding in the financial year to date, and its Basel III Tier 1 ratio was 7.79 per cent as at 30 June 2013.
Morningstar continues its positive outlook for the Melbourne-based business, said Mr Ellis, “but limited detail makes it difficult to fully gauge underlying performance”.
“Key earnings drivers such as volume growth, margins and bad debts point to solid future earnings growth,” he added.
“Further improvements in UK banking are encouraging with the troubled UK commercial real estate portfolio run-off tracking to plan.”
