ANZ has announced an unaudited statutory after tax profit for the December 2020 quarter of A$1.62 billion, with unaudited cash profit from continuing operations of $1.810 billion – an increase of 54 per cent on the average of the last two quarters of 2020.

Shayne Elliott, ANZ chief executive, labelled this a payoff from "maintaining a simpler and well-balanced portfolio of businesses".

"All our major businesses performed well through the quarter with market share gains in our key home loan market in Australia as well as record home loan volumes in New Zealand," Elliott said.

"Margins were up across the group due to higher volume growth in targeted segments and a disciplined and active approach to risk and pricing."

Looking at a particular highlight of the trading update, the 5 basis point increase in group net interest margins (on an underlying basis NIM increased 3 bps), acting CFO Shane Buggle told Bluenotes, ANZ's in-house news service, that the relative improvement came from a number of factors including asset and deposit pricing.

ANZ chief risk officer Kevin Corbally said the bank came into this financial year very well positioned from both a capital and a provisioning perspective.

This followed moves to significantly increase provision balances in 2020, which impacted heavily on ANZ's reported profits in the first six months of 2020, as the group took around $1.7 billion of provision charges in a six-month period.

ANZ reported a pro forma APRA Level 2 CET1 Ratio of around 11.8 per cent, as at 31 December 2020, adjusted to include the expected conversion of NZ capital notes in 2022.

CEO Elliott added that the net release in the collective provision of $150 million reflected improved economic conditions, "particularly here in Australia".

This comprises an individually assessed provision charge of $23 million and a collective provision release of $173 million – about 10 per cent of the $1.7 billion set aside during FY20. This relatively low charge "reflects the continued effect of Government and bank support packages for customers affected by COVID-19," the bank said.

In its results announcement, ANZ said that around 145,000 home loan and commercial customers in Australia and New Zealand were "supported" with repayment deferrals to help them manage the impact of COVID-19.

Approximately 1 per cent of ANZ's home loan customers and 4 per cent of business customers are still receiving COVID support. Further details:

• Australia: 84 per cent of deferred home loans have "rolled off"; while 98 per cent of home loans and 90 per cent of business loans have returned to repayment. Six per cent of business loans have been restructured. • New Zealand: 92 per cent of loan deferrals have rolled off; 86 per cent of home loans have returned to repayments.