New Zealand banking in 2016

Since the recent financial crisis started to impact New Zealand banking in 2008, profits earned by banks have generally been well below the 1% benchmark commonly regarded as acceptable. The long-term trend is shown in the graph below (the severe decline in profitability in the September quarter of 2009 was due to the banks making provision for tax in relation to court cases, with some reversal of previous excess provisions in the following, December 2009 quarter). These figures are for the four major banks plus TSB and Kiwibank (since March 2006 only).