The season starts with the National Australia Bank, the owner of the BNZ on Thursday, followed by the ANZ on Friday, Westpac on November 3 and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the owner of ASB Bank, on November 5.
Bank profits are always the focus for investors and customers alike with increasing profits and pay rates for chief executives continually under scrutiny.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre expected a ''relatively solid'' reporting season with the improved lending accompanied by stronger foreign exchange growth and interest rates.
''Asset quality will remain good, resulting in low bad debt charge. We are unlikely to see capital management ahead of the Financial System Inquiry. Overall, we expect the second-half results to be supportive for depressed share prices.''
Lower deposit rates would be partially offset by asset price competition.
While organic capital generation was likely to remain strong in the second half, Craigs did not expect the banks to announce either special dividends or buybacks given stronger asset growth and the impending release of the Financial System Inquiry recommendations, he said.
''We believe boards are likely to err on the side of caution.''
NABThe National Australia Bank was expected to report second-half cash earnings of $A2.02 billion ($NZ2.26 billion), down 36% from the first half.
Excluding the $A1.34 billion post-tax write-downs announced on October 9, the cash earnings guidance was $A3.6 billion, or 7% up on the first half.
The $A1.34 billion came from writing down the UK assets, interest rate hedging, capitalised software, tax and research and development.
The result would be affected by poor fee growth as NAB continued to lead the market on lower fees and a marginal reduction in treasury and trading profits.
Lending growth of 2.2% with growth in Australia retail and New Zealand would be offset by falls in the UK and share losses in business banking.
ANZCash earnings of $A3.6 billion are forecast for the half-year, up 1.1% on the first half of the year.
Craigs was expecting earnings growth to be driven by loan growth of 4.7% from both the Asian and domestic businesses, with ANZ continuing to gain market share.
Costs were expected to increase by 5% half-on-half but on a guidance basis, costs were only expected to increase by 2.7% on the previous corresponding period with the business benefiting from its Asian hub operations.
WestpacWestpac was expected to report cash earnings of $3.8 billion, up 2.3% on the first half.
Mr McIntyre said underlying earnings growth was slightly better at 3.1% for the second half.
Key drivers of the result would include lower margins due to stronger balance sheet growth and increased asset competition, lending growth of 4% in the second half, reflecting stronger housing growth and improvements in business lending in recent months and cost growth of 1.6%, reflecting increased lending.
