By Gareth Vaughan
Rural lender Rabobank New Zealand has posted a more than eight-fold rise in annual profit after a big drop in provisions for bad loans, but still lost out on interest payments worth nearly NZ$34 million due to impaired assets.
Rabobank's latest General Disclosure Statement (GDS) shows profit after income tax of NZ$71.9 million for the 2010 calendar year, up from just NZ$8.5 million in 2009. The turnaround came as the bank released a NZ$9.6 million provision for risk compared with a NZ$17.6 million charge in 2009. Its impairment losses on loans tumbled 57% to NZ$34.7 million from NZ$80.9 million.
Net interest income rose by NZ$21.8 million, or 12%, to NZ$202.7 million. This rise came despite the bank recording interest forgone of NZ$33.75 million with NZ$390.7 million worth of individually impaired assets at year's end. That compares with interest forgone of just NZ$5 million in 2009 and impaired assets of NZ$298.4 million at the end of 2009.
Rabobank's total assets stood at about NZ$7.2 billion at December 31, up from NZ$7.1 billion at September 30. Total liabilities rose to NZ$6.53 billion from NZ$6.48 billion. The bank's deposits, including those with RaboDirect, rose by about NZ$175 million in the three months to December to NZ$2.67 billion.
Ben Russell, Rabobank's New Zealand general manager, told interest.co.nz in January that the bank was "actively looking" for opportunities to lend to farmers wanting to buy farms but was also looking carefully at the ability of farms to service debt used to help fund any purchase.
Rabobank's GDS shows NZ$7 billion of its total NZ$7.6 billion worth of credit exposures in the agriculture, forestry and fishery industries. Its next biggest exposure, at NZ$267.3 million, is property and business services followed by finance and insurance at NZ$245.7 million.
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2 Comments
Not this Bank, but here is a wee anecdote about Banks and their current paranoia about simple amounts of interest and capital loss.
As this is the only bank blog lately, all else being taken up with the property opinions, I shall use this particular topic.
Yer tis.
I took away a largish sum of money from an Australian Bank recently.
By error they issued a Bank Cheque for one tenth of the amount, so had to re-issue another.
Weeks later all hell breaks loose, with urgent phone calls, letters and late night calls to my wife and I because the holding account was way overdrawn to the tune of the 1st cheque issued.
It was easy to put it right the next day, when I explained what the simple error was and that it was their error after all.
The electronic process had been impaired, I had not stolen their meagre amount, however it seems that they thought it was my fault, somehow.
In these days of daily electronic accounting and balancing, you would have thought that this matter would have been simply recognised and fixed up without the hysteria and involving me visiting said bank and them asserting that I had overdrawn this account somehow.
Not one of the dumb banking officials had even looked to see if the cheque had been cashed or deposited or blown up their own arse.
No, the sum was still sitting in their electronic Bank Cheque account uncashed, unwanted and lonely, though my account acruing exponential penalty interest consequently.
All is well that ends well and it is now sorted. I trust.
But never trust a bank that is so unaware of just what could have happened, if they had only looked, before they leaped.
Not that there was an apology forthcoming either, over upsetting me the customer, oh no!.
What about the good customer always being right and put first.
Panic over, but what a panic over a really insignificant amount in the big scheme of things.
I dread to think what the Crafar ordeal cost the Banks.
A few heads must have rolled over that little accounting error.
Maybe, that is why we are all paying for the priviledge of banking with these superlative Aussies locally.
There is no accounting for that.
Or maybe a Government Bailout to the tune of 1.3b and Waltzing Matilda is part of the cause.
Or was that another cock up of a different sort.
As an aside, maybe Mr Hickey could suck up to Mr Key or Mr English and do some real reporting and see just which MPs and other illustrious honerable people were invested in that little bail-out.
I would like to see a published list of who benefitted from that bail-out to set my mind at rest, that it was not just Ma n Pa saver.
I shall believe it when I see it.
Accountability should be transparent.
It should not be foisted on wrong people the good customers.
In my opinion.
Eh.
Cannot be bothered to login again. Not worth the effort, nor the time. But here is another observation.
And one link below, for the nutters.
You be the Judge.
Though what Judge of character sits on todays bench, I ask myself.
Personally, I think the judges need the psychologist. The nutters are winning.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/jobs/healthcare/psychology-counselling/listing-365519116.htm
Did ya read today how the Mafia get off lightly.
They employ a tame psychologist.
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