Property slowdown stalls growth in Police & Nurses
The slowing Perth property market was responsible for Police & Nurses Credit Society Group's three per cent net profit decline to $19.2 million for financial year 2008.The Police & Nurses banking division posted an eight per cent increase in NPAT to $17.4 million, with revenue from the sale of property developments $5 million in FY08, less than half the $10.3 million of the corresponding period."The main reason profit has fallen is we have a property development arm, as two years ago we had a release of some broad acre property in the north of Perth, and that produced a large income," said Police & Nurses chief executive officer Fred Huis."It's an arm I treat as a good going concern. We haven't had one year of loss in property development, it's just that some years we have had huge profits and other years less profits."The Police & Nurses Group also has a financial planning division, and retirement village interests.Total loans under management now exceed $2 billion, a twelve per cent increase, with member deposits up 13 per cent to $1.2 billion.Just under $3 million in loans was written off for the financial year, up from $2.2 million, with the provision for impairment increasing from 0.06 per cent to 0.08 per cent.Personal loans contributed the majority of bad debt with $2.6 million (FY07 $2 million), revolving credit contributed $405,000 (FY07 $85,000), with zero commercial loan bad debt (FY07 $115,000).Huis said the credit society has made a commitment to pass on in full any Reserve Bank official cash rate reductions for all mortgage secured lending."If it's a 0.25 or a 0.5 percentage point cut, we will match that rate."