After years of seemingly unstoppable growth, banking sector profits have fallen slightly, but New Zealand banks still made $5.71 billion in 2019.
That's down from $5.77 billion. In 2017 and 2018 bank profits rose by 7.35 per cent and 11.21 per cent respectively.
The report highlighted the disruption that fintech (the technology that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial service) is creating in the banking sector.
The figures come from from KPMG's Financial Institutions Performance Survey for 2019. KPMG's head of banking and finance is John Kensington. 2018 was a record for the sector, and prompted more questions over whether bank profits are fair.