By Sneha Kumar
Feb 18 (Reuters) – National Australia Bank’s shares shot to a record high after the top business lender reported a 16% growth in its first-quarter cash earnings on Wednesday, driven by strong performance across its business and home lending segments.
Shares of the lender rose as much as 5.8% to an all-time high of A$47.96, also marking their best trading session since April 10 last year.
Australia’s top business lender posted cash earnings of A$2.02 billion ($1.43 billion) for the quarter ended December 31, higher than A$1.74 billion reported a year ago.
The bank’s biggest segment, business banking, saw a 7% increase in quarterly volumes with a 3% growth in the Business & Private Banking segment.
All of this comes as competition intensifies, with peers Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking locked in a fight to grab more customers and grow their market share.
Hot on its heels, quarterly housing loan volumes rose 5% with Australian home lending growth outpacing the broader market, excluding the runoffs from its Advantedge unit.
NAB had announced last year that it would migrate all existing Advantedge home loans to NAB branded home loans in late 2026.
NAB’s net interest margin — a closely watched measure of lending profitability — increased 2 basis points to 1.80%, it said.
Meanwhile, the bank’s measure of its spare cash or common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio slipped to 11.48% in the first quarter, from 11.6% last year.
“Overall, a very strong headline beat underpinned by a great quarter in M&T (Markets & Treasury) and in better asset quality,” Citi analysts wrote.
“CET1 remains the clear negative out of this result, and weaker vs what we saw in November, which could remain an overhang on what was a good quarter.”
“NAB is well placed to manage our bank for the long term and to support our customers, while delivering sustainable growth and returns for shareholders,” said NAB CEO Andrew Irvine.
NAB brings the curtain down on “Big Four” banks’ February earnings season and keeps the upbeat tone set by CBA last week, when it delivered record first-half cash earnings on the back of market share gains across home loans, business loans, and deposits.
Meanwhile, Westpac Banking Corp and ANZ Group both beat analysts’ estimates for their respective first-quarter profits last week.
($1 = 1.4120 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
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