One feature of Bank of Queensland's so far abbreviated reporting for the February 2012 half-year is the improvement of three basis points, to 1.68 bps, in its net interest margin.The bank achieved this in spite of a short-lived act as a price leader in the home loan market in late 2011, when the bank promptly changed its variable home-loan interest rates in line with moves by the Reserve Bank of Australia (at a time when major lenders were vacillating about how to proceed).One reason for the improvement is that the bank adjusted its deposit pricing in a manner that retained, at lower rates, a portion of customers that had responded to high-priced deposit offers early in 2011.Ewan Cameron, the bank's chief financial officer, said the bank had raised A$1.6 billion in "web specials", $600 million of which the bank retained at rates below the RBA's cash rate.Cameron said that this "dynamic really helped in the second half."However, the bottom line for BOQ remains a loss of $91 million in the first half, a reversal of $150 million from the $48 million profit in the February 2011 half. The collective provision of $162 million explains the loss, with the bank putting its "adjusted, normalised cash profit" for the current half at $40 million.BOQ said its normalised, pre-provision profit for the half was $222 million, up $6 million over one year, so there is some loss in earnings' momentum given the growth in assets of six per cent over the year.