Commonwealth Bank chief Ralph Norris says expenses from bad debts are likely to stabilise or improve during the year ahead, and his company will look for acquisitions.

In an interview on ABC television on Sunday, Mr Norris was cautiously optimistic that the bank had put the worst of its bad debt woes behind it.

Last week the Commonwealth Bank announced its earnings results, with a $2.93 billion expense related to bad debts.

Mr Norris said in the 2009-10 financial year the bad debt level should be about the same, although the bank retained a slightly lower bias on the figures.
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National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB) chief executive Cameron Clyne says rising bad debt levels will be feature of most banks’ results over the “next couple” of half years, particularly if unemployment rises.

Mr Clyne said while Australia was experiencing a milder downturn that other countries around the world, its banks had already seen a rise in corporate credit impairments related to leveraged business models over late 2008 and early 2009.

“We are now very much in the same phase of the downturn and we saw that particularly, I think, in most banks’ results, with an up-tick in the March half (year) with bad and doubtful debts,” he told ABC Television.

“We think that’s going to be a feature in the next couple of halves.
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