Mixed profit for RBA

The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday reported underlying earnings of $2.1 billion for the year to June 2008, a rise of $690 million from 2007. The RBA published its annual report yesterday.

Only $1.4 billion of the earnings is "available for distribution" and the RBA paid the whole lot as a dividend to the Australian government. Earnings available for distribution were $1.1 billion last year.

The RBA said it made realised gains of $614 million trading foreign exchange (mostly) and also from trading interest rate securities.

The central bank incurred an unrealised valuation loss of $1.3 billion, virtually all of which is due to the net appreciation of the exchange rate.

The Reserve Bank's balance sheet contracted by about $30 billion during the year to assets of $101 billion and liabilities of $92 billion, largely due to the shift of investments by the Future Fund into other areas (and mainly into commercial bank deposits, for now).

The RBA's dealings were also unusually active as the credit crunch emerged and turned destructive.

Even so the RBA said its operating costs increased only six per cent over the year while staff levels increased three per cent.