The bank's lifting its game and predicting profit growth, but the cynics are watching.
Former CommBanker John Mulcahy appears to be making headway in correcting the long-held market perception that Suncorp has one of the weakest banking franchises in the country.
With all the focus on the group's moves into general insurance in recent years, the bank had lost ground in areas such as home loans, even in its native Queensland.
Just to show how much it can improve, Suncorp is already predicting operating profit growth for this division in the mid-teens for the full year, as part of overall group profit growth forecasts of more than 20 per cent growth.
Now JP Morgan, for one, has upped its group profit forecasts by around 3 per cent for the next two years, amid signs that Suncorp's home loan volumes are finally growing in line with the overall lending market, rather than the sub-par performance of recent years.
The natural concern is that this comes at the expense of margins (all of the big banks are facing some margin pressure, but are claiming it's to do with the squeeze caused by the move in wholesale rates ahead of official rate rises).
Suncorp might be able to offset these pressures because it is having success garnering low-cost retail deposits and in December secured a higher credit rating.
Investors are confronting the twin concerns of plateauing premiums and a fall-off in the housing market, but Mulcahy at least seems confident at the moment. He even cheekily suggested last week that his much-maligned "all-finanz" strategy could become de rigeur in the financial services sector. Cynics might say this served another purpose in alerting potential buyers like St George about the value of owning general insurance - that is, attracting a takeover bid. Suncorp closed 2c lower at $13.50.
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