ANZ have announced strong results for the first half of 2021, posting a statutory profit of almost $3 billion. That marks a 113% rise on the equivalent time period up to March 2020, and 45% on the second half of 2020.
Cash profits were up 28% on SH20 and the proposed Interim Dividend to shareholders will be 70c per share.
ANZ reported that they have provided around 92,000 new home loan accounts in the previous half year, lifting them above NAB to become the third largest provider of mortgages. There were a further 42,000 new home loans written in New Zealand.
Despite the positive results, their share price dropped slightly and was down 2.43% at time of print on Wednesday afternoon.
“Work done over the past five years to simplify our operations, strengthen our balance sheet and de-risk the Group helped us deliver a strong result this half, meaning we are well-placed to continue to support the ongoing economic recovery and customers doing it tough,” said CEO Shayne Elliot in the statement that accompanied the results.
“ANZ is in a strong position both financially and operationally. We are well capitalised and our disciplined approach to costs over many years has us well placed to invest in opportunities to grow our business in targeted segments. The work to digitise core processes and platforms continues at pace and this will be more visible to customers towards the end of the year.”
