ANZ will not require shareholders to feel the pain of the cost of righting the problems and rorts exposed in the Hayne Royal Commission into misconduct in financial services.
The bank will maintain the dividend at 80 cents a share, making for an unchanged full-year payout of $1.60 a share.
The bank revealed cash earnings of $6.49 billion for the year to September, down 5%, while statutory earnings were flat at $6.40 billion.
CEO, Shayne Elliott said in a statement that “Actions taken since 2016 to simplify the business and reduce cost, position ANZ well to meet the immediate challenges facing the industry.”
“Retail banking in Australia faced strong headwinds with housing growth slowing and borrowing capacity reducing. We continued our disciplined approach to home loan growth by focusing on customers who want to buy and own their own home.
“While this meant we sacrificed short-term revenue growth and higher margins in Australia, particularly in the investor and interest-only segments, it was the right thing to do for shareholders.
“New Zealand again delivered a strong performance, while the composition of our Institutional results provided improved and diversified earnings. Both of these businesses have undergone significant transformations in recent years with our diversification becoming even more important as housing credit slows in Australia,“ Mr. Elliott said on Wednesday in a statement.
The result was helped, again by a sharp improvement in impaired assets – down 34% over the year to $2.1 billion in 2017-18 from $3.2 billion a year earlier.
Also helping to protect profit was lower labour costs from an 11% drop in full-time employees to 39,924 from 44,896 a year earlier.
ANZ announced earlier this month charges of $377 million after tax have been recognised in the September half year for refunds to customers and related remediation costs. ANZ also recorded accelerated amortisation expense of $206 million in 2H18, predominantly relating to its International business.
A restructuring charge of $104 million, largely relating to the previously announced move of the Australia and Technology Divisions to agile ways of working, was also recorded in 2H18.
As well costs associated with the royal commission were put at $55 million pre-tax.
