MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) May 8, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB; AA-/Stable/A-1+) are unchanged following the announcement by NAB today of its fiscal 2014 first-half results. While earnings of A$3.15 billion for the 2014 first-half year were 8.5% and 4.8% higher than the previous two half-year reporting periods, this was primarily driven by the materially lower A$528 million charge for bad and doubtful debts. Reported underlying profit of A$5.03 billion declined by 1.5% compared with the prior half year driven by factors including slightly lower revenues in the Australian Banking division and U.K. conduct-related expenses. Group credit quality ratios improved, with the ratio of past due and impaired assets
