Bank profits in Australia fell five per cent to $17.5 billion in the year to March 2010, the latest overview of the financial performance of the sector published by APRA shows.
Industry profit levels are around one quarter lower, measured in aggregate profit, than they were at their peak in the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008 when the combined profit of all banks exceeded $23 billion.
ROA_graph_q1_2010
Measured by return on assets industry profits were flat in the year to March 2010, with an ROA of 0.6 per cent. Industry ROA ranged between 0.9 per cent and 1.1 per cent from 2005 to 2007 and which was the high water mark for bank profitability in Australia.
Return on equity across the 54 banks supervised by APRA fell to 9.9 per cent in the year to March 2010 from 12.6 per cent in the preceding year. Industry ROE peaked at around 18 per cent in 2006 and 2007.
Return on assets fell for major banks over the last year to 0.6 per cent from 0.8 per cent. The major banks' ROE fell to 9.9 per cent from 12.6 per cent over the last year, though this is likely to bounce back in the forthcoming bank reporting season.
Foreign subsidiary banks were the only sub-sector of the banking industry to report an increase in ROA and ROE in the year to March 2010 on the APRA banking data.
ROA for foreign banks increased to 0.7 per cent from 0.5 per cent in the year to March 2010. ROE increased to 10.3 per cent from 7.9 per cent.
Banks in this sector generated only $760 million in profit between them or less than four per cent of the industry total.