Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
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ANZ today announced an unaudited cash profit of $1.79 billion and an unaudited statutory net profit of $1.65 billion for the 3 months to 31 December 2014, declaring it was a “solid result in a tough environment”. We say, “below expectations, in an increasingly complex and competitive market!” Profit before Provisions grew 5.2% versus the … Continue reading “ANZ Trading Update – Solid In Tough Environment”
Regulators have been concerned about the quality of lending, and have been increasing their supervision, conscious of the potential impact on financial stability. However, a paper from the Bank for International Settlements – Bank Competition and Credit Booms highlight that especially when interest rates are low, and competition intense, banks will naturally and logically drop … Continue reading “Risky Lending In A Low Interest Rate Competitive Environment”
In Glenn Stevens Opening Statement to House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics today, we get a glimpse of the drivers to lower interest rates. In addition, they are prepared to cut rates even if it leads to more growth in the Sydney property market to drive growth, even if that lever is now less … Continue reading “RBA Trading Economic Growth Against Sydney Property”
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced its results for the half year ended 31 December 2014 today. The Group’s statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) for the half year ended 31 December 2014 was $4,535 million, which represents an 8 per cent increase on the prior comparative period. Cash (NPAT) was $4,623 million, an increase … Continue reading “CBA Results Suggests Momentum Slowing?”
The ABS published revised First Time Buyer data to try and iron out some data issues. As a result in November 2014 an extra 1,566 loans (25.8%) were found. This means First Time Buyer Loans were 14.6% of new loans in November, as opposed to 11.6% reported previously. Still a low number, compared with the … Continue reading “First Time Loans Now 25% Higher – ABS”
Fresh on the heels of the FSI report, the core thesis of which is that the Australian Banks are too big to fail, so capital buffers must be increased to protect Australia from potential risks in a down turn (a “mild” crash could lead to the loss of 900,000 jobs and a $1-2 trillion or … Continue reading “Housing Finance Regulation – Tweaked, Not Reformed”
The final report of the Financial Systems Inquiry was released on Sunday. We already provided a summary of the 44 recommendations and discussed some of the specific proposals. It is of course a report to Government, so still a political process will run before we see what translates into policy, though some recommendations – for … Continue reading “Reflections on FSI”
Sunday is D-day for the FSI inquiry. The Financial System Inquiry will establish a direction for the future of Australia’s financial system. The Inquiry will lay out a ‘blueprint’ for the financial system over the next decade. So in preparation, its worth reflecting on how we got to this point. The earlier Campbell inquiry in … Continue reading “FSI Countdown”
The RBA today published a paper on “Mortgage-related Financial Difficulties: Evidence from Australian Micro-level Data.” Although default rates in Australia are lower than in many other countries, their research paper delved into the different types of mortgage lending, using loan-level pool data provided by MARQ Services and concluded that higher LVR lending, and interest only … Continue reading “High LVR Lending More Risky – RBA”
APRA published their quarterly ADI property statistics today to September 2014. ADIs’ total domestic housing loans were $1.3 trillion, an increase of $103.4 billion (9.0 per cent) over the year. There were 5.2 million housing loans outstanding with an average balance of $239,000. The proportion of investment loans moved higher again to 34% of all … Continue reading “ADI Residential Property Exposures Up Again”