Bank Australia has almost doubled its annual profit in the first full year since its merger with Qudos Bank, reporting net profit after tax of $70.8 million for the 2026 financial year (FY26), up from $36.8 million the previous year.
The customer-owned bank credited the 92% lift largely to its two recent deals and a bigger balance sheet, with one-off share sale gains adding to the result.
Bank Australia managing director Damien Walsh (pictured) described the period as "a significant year of transition and achievement" for the bank.
Home loans grew 17.7% and deposits rose 11.9%, both measured against the combined Bank Australia and Qudos Bank books in FY25.
Total assets reached $21.3 billion, a $9 billion (73%) increase on the previous year. That growth reflects both the Qudos merger and Bank Australia's purchase of Australian Unity Bank, which added 31,052 of the 53,897 customers who joined during the year. The bank now serves about 330,000 customers.
Bank Australia also pointed to its role in the Australian government's Help to Buy scheme. It was one of two lenders to join the shared-equity program at launch, which supports first-home buyers and low- and middle-income earners.
Of those two original lenders, Bank Australia was the only one to let brokers write Help to Buy loans, but brokers gain a second option from today, with Teachers Mutual Bank opening the scheme to brokers from 6 October.
Part of the profit jump came from items that won't recur. These included a completion payment from the FY25 sale of Data Action shares and the sale of its Indue shareholding during FY26.
Core operating costs came in under budget, helped partly by some integration work slipping into FY27 and FY28.
Net interest margin held steady at 1.67%. The cost-to-income ratio, excluding Qudos merger integration costs, improved slightly to 71.1% from 71.9%. Capital adequacy eased to 16.0% from 16.7%, while reserves rose to $1.209 billion.
That deferred work now lands in the year ahead. Walsh signalled the result is unlikely to be repeated, saying "we expect our profit to moderate as we accelerate our integration activity in FY27", and adding that the bank plans to keep increasing investment in technology and customer service.
The integration workload may not end with Qudos. In August, Bank Australia and P&N Group completed initial due diligence on a proposed merger and moved to seek regulatory approval, ahead of a member vote in 2027 on a combined bank with more than $30 billion in assets.
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