Courtesy of The Australian:
Bank of Queensland has lifted interest rates on its variable home loans and slugged property investors with higher rates, after reporting a lower-than-expected 1H profit and flat margins.
1H Cash profit rose 7% to $179 million, with revenues up 4% to $561 million.
But the market was expecting $187.8 million so the cash profit missed consensus by 5.3%.
BoQ did manage to holds its net interest margin flat at 1.97%, defying the squeeze other lenders have faced amid tightening financial conditions and increased funding costs.
The lender said it will lift its variable home loan interest rates by 12 basis points to 5.86%, and ramp up investor loan rates by 25 basis points to 6.28%, effective from the end of next week.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED! From Chief executive Jon Sutton:
“Over the half, we continued to make good strategic progress while successfully balancing our growth, margin and risk priorities in a market featuring high levels of competition, volatile wholesale funding markets and regulatory uncertainty. While we don’t expect the competition and funding headwinds that have emerged over the last six months to disappear quickly, I am confident our strategy and operating model will enable us to continue to build sustainable financial performance.”
There was no change in CBA CDS yesterday at 119bps so the Ponzi Index remains high:
Hello chronic credit crunch.
