The detail amid a blistering, even devastating, Commonwealth Bank profit yesterday is that the bank’s arrears data is out of date and misleading – “disconnected” in the words of CEO Matt Comyn yesterday – as is so much of the bank’s CY2022 profit and its December half year profit. “Arrears cannot be low and will not be low” was the undertone of so much of the bank’s profit briefing. The bank waited for ratings agency S&P Global to supply more cogent data. Unsurprisingly, an uptick in home loan arrears over recent months is now an upswing, and the building blocks are in place for severe numbers on the level of mortgages 90 days or more in arrears, the S&P data shows. These are 0.38 per cent as at December 2022 and the 90 day numbers have been getting better and better all year - 38 bps is down from 53 bps a year ago. It’s the shuffle in the 31 to 60 day numbers that will frighten the industry. At 28 bps these are up from 17 bps in August. Trouble is well and truly brewing in banking. The failure to provision for the cataclysm ahead is shameful.