Feb 18 (Reuters) - National Australia Bank reported an 16% rise in its first-quarter cash earnings on Wednesday, driven by strong performance across segments against a supportive domestic economic environment.
The country's top business lender posted cash earnings of A$2.02 billion ($1.43 billion) for the quarter ended December 31, higher than A$1.74 billion reported a year ago.
The bank's biggest segment, business banking, saw a 7% increase in quarterly volumes with a 3% growth in the Business & Private
Banking segment.
All of this comes as competition intensifies, with peers Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking locked in a fight to grab more customers and grow their market share.
Hot on its heels, quarterly housing loan volumes rose 5% with Australian home lending growth outpacing the broader market, excluding the runoffs from its Advantedge unit.
NAB, Australia's third-largest bank by market capitalisation, had announced last year that it would migrate all existing Advantedge home loans to NAB branded home loans in late 2026.
NAB's net interest margin — a closely watched measure of lending profitability — increased 2 basis points to 1.80%, it said.
Meanwhile, the bank's measure of its spare cash or common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio slipped to 11.48% in the first quarter, from 11.6% last year.
Last week, the other three "Big Four" banks reported strong results with Commonwealth Bank of Australia posting record first-half cash earnings on market share gains in home loans, business loans and deposits.
Meanwhile, Westpac Banking Corp and ANZ Group both beat analysts' estimates for their respective first-quarter profits.
($1 = 1.4120 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
