© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Office workers eat lunch in front of an ANZ Banking corporation tower in central Sydney, Australia February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz/File Photo
By Archishma Iyer
(Reuters) -Australia’s ANZ Group said on Monday its first-quarter group revenue was in line with the quarterly average of first-half fiscal 2023 revenue, driven by its institutional division’s markets business, lifting shares to their highest in 22 months.
Shares of the Melbourne-listed lender rose nearly 1% to A$27.93, as of 2320 GMT, to hit their highest levels since April 21, 2022; as against the broader benchmark’s 0.3% drop.
Surging demand for its institutional banking services pushed Australia’s fourth-biggest lender to post a record annual profit last year, as it benefited from a payments platform that processes big cross-border transactions.
“The institutional division’s markets business had a good start to the year with revenues a little better than the first-half FY23 average of A$575 million ($374.73 million),” the company said in a statement on Monday.
It also added that its lending growth across its Australian retail and consumer franchises were robust, fueled by customer deposits, and is continuing to boost Australian home loan book profits.
ANZ Group added A$8 billion in customer deposits across its retail and commercial divisions in Australia, even as its institutional deposits fell by A$3 billion.
The bank’s first-quarter revenue was in line with the quarterly average of the previous fiscal year’s first half of A$5.26 billion, the company said in a limited quarterly update that did not provide a profit number.
“1Q24 group revenue was in line with the 1H23 quarterly average and consequently slightly better than we expected,” analysts from Citi said in a client note.
“This will be received as an in-line disclosure given the share price rally into the result and generally benign financials,” the analysts said.
The bank’s common equity tier 1 ratio, however, fell to 13.1% at the end of December 2023, compared with 13.3% at the end of last September.
($1 = 1.5344 Australian dollars)
