(Reuters) - Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) <ANZ.AX> said on Tuesday its impaired assets fell 9.3 percent in the first quarter, helped by a reduction in impaired assets in its New Zealand division.
Gross impaired assets over the three months ended Dec. 31 fell to A$2.16 billion ($1.71 billion) from A$2.38 billion in the September quarter, with total provision charge of A$202 million, ANZ said.
ANZ defines impaired assets as financial assets where doubt exists as to whether the full contractual amount will be received in a timely manner, or where concessional terms have been provided because of financial difficulties of the customer.
ANZ, Australia's third-largest lender by market capitalisation, added that its common equity tier 1 ratio was 10.82 percent as at Dec. 31, higher than 10.6 percent as at Sept. 30.
Australian banks have rushed to build up their capital coffers since the financial regulator last year asked them to raise their tier 1 capital ratios to 10.5 percent by 2020 to protect against financial shocks.
Total credit risk-weighted assets at end-December rose 0.7 percent from three months prior, ANZ said. The bank did not disclose profit or revenue in its limited quarterly update after it decided to stop reporting quarterly earnings figures last month.
($1 = 1.2645 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Editing by Catherine Evans)
