ANZ posted a cash profit of $7.4 billion for fiscal 2023, up 14 per cent from the $6.5 billion it made in 2021/22. Its statutory net profit was flat at $7.1 billion.

“This is a strong annual result, with record revenue and cash profit following several years of transformation,” ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott said  on Monday.

ANZ had strengthened its balance sheet and now had provisions for potential credit losses at higher than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

“This is critical as we enter a period of continued high interest rates, rising costs and geopolitical tensions,” Elliott said.

Last week, National Australia Bank reported a rise in cash earnings of $7.7 billion and a net profit of $7.4 billion for fiscal 2023, while Westpac grew its net profit by 26 per cent to $7.2 billion. Commonwealth Bank in August reported $10 billion profit for the last fiscal year, up five per cent.

The ANZ CEO said while the full impact of interest rate rises was still flowing through the economy, the effects are being seen in household and business budgets.

But just 2000 of ANZ’s one million mortgage customers are in hardship, a sign that most households are “muddling through pretty well,” Elliot said in a video interview with the bank’s internal Bluenotes publication.

“Now, it’s dreadful for the 2000 and we’ll do everything we can to help them through,” he said.

“But in the scheme of things, it’s relatively modest. And so that speaks to the strength of the economy, the fact that people have been able to work through.”

The percentage of ANZ’s Australian customers that are 90 days or more behind on their home loan or credit card payments has been ticking up this year but remains well below the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.

ANZ said its ANZ Plus digital banking platform had grown to over 500,000 customers and over $10 billion in deposits since launching 18 months ago.

Elliot said that ANZ Plus, which lacks physical branches, is operating at about a 25 per cent lower cost than its more traditional bank, and that would improve as it scales.

This month ANZ released its new ANZ Plus digital home loan refinance product, which Elliot said would make home lending faster and simpler for Australian homeowners.

Elliot said it expected to hear in February from the Australian Competition Tribunal on its bid to acquire Suncorp Bank, a transaction the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has sought to block.

ANZ announced a final dividend per share of 94 cents, 56 per cent franked, taking the bank’s total payout for the year to $1.75 per share, up from $1.46 last year.

– with AAP