March 24, 2016 – Australia and New Zealand Banking Group today said bad debt charges for the first half of 2016 could almost double due to a downturn in the resources sector, a problem analysts warn could snowball across the banking sector.
A plunge in the prices of two of Australia’s biggest exports, iron ore and coal, has raised the spectre of mounting defaults by mining companies and a follow-on impact on bank earnings after years of record profits.
Shares in No 4 lender ANZ dived the most in over seven months after it said bad debt charges would likely blow out to A$900 million (US$676 million) for the first half of the current financial year, up from its A$800 million forecast only a month ago. It cited a “small number” of resources-related exposures.
Rival Westpac Banking Corp also said on Thursday it was seeing signs of stress in consumer loans in Western Australia and Queensland – Australia’s biggest mining states.
“You’re probably past the bottom of the credit cycle so it’s hard to see how things can get better from here,” said Andrew Martin, a fund manager at Alphinity Investment Management, which owns shares in the major banks.
“There is a reasonable chance that incrementally things get worse so it tends to be reasonably hard for the banks to out-perform.”
ANZ shares slumped 5.7 per cent today, shaving nearly A$5 billion off its market value. The other major banks were between 2.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent lower, underperforming a 1.2 per cent fall in the wider market.
While Australia’s economy grew 3 per cent last year, well above expectations, the economy would have grown at 4.7 per cent but for the downturn in the resources sector linked to weakening Chinese demand, government data shows.
To be sure, Australia’s major banks have small exposures to mining and mining-related services, accounting for between 1-2.5 per cent of their overall portfolios, and their total loan losses are at record lows.
But Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Wiles forecast Australian major bank impairment charges to nearly double to 28 basis points of total loans by fiscal year 2017 from 16 basis points in 2015, implying an “earnings headwind” of about 4 per cent a year over the next two years.
National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank declined to comment on any revised outlook for bad loans, referring instead to earnings statements last month where they said asset quality remained strong.