Flat earnings for Australia’s CBA in 1Q

Major player: Pedestrians past signage for CBA at a branch in Sydney. The bank dominates Australia’s A$2 trillion mortgage industry, which benefited from a property boom through Covid-19 restrictions. — Bloomberg

SYDNEY: Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) first-quarter cash earnings remained largely unchanged yesterday, but the lender’s home loan balances declined as it focused on increasing its share of revenue in the country’s competitive mortgage market.

Even though rate hikes since last year have boosted interest incomes and margins at Australian banks, rising cost of repayments has intensified competition in the home loan market, capping profit margins and hindering credit growth.