
As the Chair said, the past year has continued to test our country.
Our purpose – building a brighter future for all โ has never been more important.
We remain committed to being here for our country – in good times and when we are needed most.
Supporting our customers
We continue to focus on supporting our customers through natural disasters, the ongoing impact of COVID and growing economic uncertainty.
This includes offering natural disaster assistance to more than 2.7 million customers, contacting 5 million customers about government benefits and rebates, and helping initiate more than 2.2 million claims on Benefits Finder, which will save almost $ 500m since 2019.
We also know that many personal and business customers are feeling concerned about rising inflation and rising interest rates.
As always, we are here to support customers in this time of uncertainty and to help them understand the different options and support available to them.
We also share the community’s concern about the rise of scams and frauds and the proliferation of cyber threats occurring across Australia.
To help, we are increasing our efforts to keep customers’ accounts and personal information safe and secure. We have a variety of security services and features in place to help protect customers, including real-time monitoring and fraud prevention technology.
We recently emailed 8.5 million customers, as well as sent 5 million personalized messages through our CommBank app, to raise awareness and educate them about the actions they can take and their loved ones to stay safe online.
We’ve seen a very significant increase in response rates and activity, including more than 60,000 new customers signing up for the Credit Savvy app. Through the app, there have been more than 55,000 requests to restrict access to credit files.
In addition, more than 240,000 unique visitors have viewed our CommBank Safe web page to learn more about what they can do to protect themselves.
Delivering our strategy
This year we continue to implement our strategy of building tomorrow’s bank today for our customers. We are committed to playing a key role in helping Australia become a more modern, strong and sustainable economy.
As the Chair said, this year we released our first Climate Report, outlining our position and approach to climate change, as well as our progress and commitments.
Since June 2020 we have provided more than $30 billion in capital and funding to help customers operate more sustainably. We also provide innovative financing options such as loans linked to sustainability, green and social bonds.
With one in four home loans in Australia with the Commonwealth Bank, we also provide customers with an easy solution to reduce their environmental footprint. This includes developing partnerships, products and services that help households understand and reduce their own carbon footprints and save money on renewable energy.
Businesses are a critical factor in economic growth and jobs, and, as Australia’s largest financial institution, we have a clear role to play in supporting Australian businesses today.
In helping businesses during the pandemic, we are now supporting their growth as they manage the current environment.
At the same time, we continue to focus on growing our relationships with our business customers, and now have more than 1 million business transaction accounts and have increased business lending to $15 billion.
This year we continue to reimagine banking for our retail and business customers through innovative services and products based on the world’s best digital technology.
For our retail customers, we launched Unloan, a simple, fast and mobile-first digital home loan, and Kit, a money app to help develop children’s financial capabilities. For our business customers, we launched CommBank Smart Health, which enables real-time healthcare payments and claims.
Through our CommBank app, we also connect and integrate more features such as shopping discounts and offers, loyalty and rewards, benefits, and rebates. With 8 million digitally-active customers, our CommBank app is rated #1 by Canstar and Forrester for the 13th and sixth consecutive year, respectively.
Supporting our communities
Building a brighter future for everyone in ways that also lead to the support we provide to our communities. For communities affected by the East Coast floods, the CommBank CanGive Appeal and the CommBank Flood Relief Fund helped raise $2.8 million to provide immediate relief and to support ongoing recovery.
The Relief Fund also provided an additional $2 million to support community organizations in affected areas, and more than 200 community organizations received $10,000 grants to aid their recovery efforts.
And our specialist Community Wellbeing team has supported over 17,000 interactions with customers in vulnerable circumstances, providing confidential support, secure banking, and external resources and referrals.
Join our people
It is my privilege to work with the dedicated people at the Commonwealth Bank.
Record high engagement results show our people can see the meaningful difference they make to their customers and communities, with 90% also saying they feel proud to work for CBA . The Bank also featured it named LinkedIn’s Top Company in Australia for 2022.
The CommBank Staff Foundation, our people’s charity, has awarded $3 million to local community organizations nationwide through its Community Grant Program. Directly nominated by Foundation members, 300 organizations benefit from $10,000 grants to support their important work.
Our people have once again demonstrated our values โโof care, courage and commitment to serving our customers and communities. I thank them for their hard work and commitment.
Deliver strong financial performance
Through our continued focus on our customers and disciplined execution, the Bank delivered another year of strong financial and operational performance.
This in turn delivered strong financial results, and, as the Chair said, an 11% increase in our cash net profit after tax.
By serving customers very well and strengthening our relationships with them, we have improved our retail and business transactional and deposits franchise above the system.
Being the leader in transactional banking in deposits is especially important in a rising rate environment.
This increase in deposits also funded higher lending volumes to retail, business and institutional customers.
During the year, we processed a record number of home loan applications to provide $157 billion in new lending to households.
When combined with our good credit portfolio quality and lower provisions, our operating performance was 4% higher.
Our continued balance sheet strength and strong capital position, means the Bank is well positioned to continue supporting our customers and the wider Australian economy, while delivering consistent and sustainable returns. to our shareholders.
And we thank you, our shareholders, for your continued trust and support.
Looking ahead
In this uncertain environment, we remain focused on supporting our customers and community.
We are also committed to playing our part in supporting the economy, promoting financial stability and encouraging growth.
Overall, we remain fundamentally optimistic about the medium to long term opportunities for Australia, as well as our capacity to provide support in the immediate future for customers who need us.
Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in the Bank’s core retail, business and institutional banking franchises, to strengthen our proposition and extend our digital leadership.
We believe that strong customer engagement and deeper relationships will continue to underpin our continued positive performance.
On behalf of everyone at the Commonwealth Bank I would like to thank Catherine Livingstone AO, who is retiring as our Chair in August 2022, for her contribution to our organisation, and the clear direction she has set for the Board, Executive Leadership Team, and all in the bank.
As Paul said, we are a better organization as a result of Catherine’s dedication and leadership, and we wish her well for the future.
Conclusion
As we look to the year ahead, we remain committed to delivering positive outcomes for all our stakeholders:
- The 16 million customers who consider us their trusted financial partner;
- The nearly 1 million businesses that trust us to help them continue to operate and grow for the future;
- The 870,000 direct shareholders, and millions more through superannuation funds, who rely on us to deliver sustainable returns; and
- The 45,000 people who proudly work for us, and work every day to serve our customers and communities.
I want to thank our customers, our people and you, our shareholders, for your continued support of Commonwealth Bank.