The owners of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares will want to know how their bank is projected to grow in the next few years. This could be key to influencing whether the ASX bank share rises from here or not.
Businesses are usually valued based on how much profit they make and how much their earnings is projected to grow from here. Over time, I'd expect the share price to follow the earnings higher, assuming profit generation does improve.
Over the last few years, CBA has shown an ability to regularly grow earnings while other ASX bank shares have struggled.
Let's take a look at what's expected from Australia's largest bank.
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FY26
The ASX bank share reported its FY26 half-year result last week and there were a number of positives.
In the six months to 31 December 2025, Commonwealth Bank reported that its cash net profit after tax (NPAT) rose by 6% year-over-year to $5.44 billion, while statutory net profit increased 5% year over year to $5.4 billion.
The ASX bank share decided to increase the half-year dividend payout by 4% year-over-year to $2.35 per share.
Competition meant the underlying net interest margin (NIM) was flat, but improved credit quality led to a reduced loan impairment expense, with home loan arrears decreasing.
The broker UBS noted that the profit was stronger than the market (and its own analysts) were expecting thanks to loan growth, though underlying costs grew 5.3% half over half.
UBS also liked CBA's business bank performance, the growth of transactional deposits (especially in retail banking) and strong mortgage growth. This is expected to "support cash NPAT growth in a stable asset quality and credit environment despite a fluid competitive backdrop".
Despite increasing the earnings per share (EPS) estimates by the low single digits for the next few years, UBS still thinks the CBA share price valuation is "challenging".
For the 2026 financial year, UBS expects CBA to deliver net profit of $10.9 billion.
FY27
UBS decided to increase its cash EPS estimates for FY26, FY27 and FY28 by 1.7%, 2.7% and 3% respectively based on increased loan growth expectations and slightly higher NIM expectations in FY27 and FY28 (boosting forecast net interest income).
However, those upgrades are not as high as they might have been without expectations of increased costs from tech inflation and investments, too.
With that in mind, UBS increased its projection for the ASX bank share to make $11.1 billion of net profit in FY27.
FY28
UBS forecast noted that earnings per CBA share is projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4% over the next three years. Earnings progression is positive, though investors may be hoping for faster growth than that. UBS analysts are certainly hoping for a faster growth rate.
The broker predicts that CBA's net profit could increase to $11.5 billion in FY28.
FY29
Earnings are forecast to continue their fairly slow-but-steady improvement going into the end of the decade, though the profit growth isn't expected to be any faster.
For FY29, UBS projects a potential net profit of $12 billion.
FY30
The final year of this series could see the business deliver its strongest profit compared to every other year in the 2020s. But, the profit progress is not expected to accelerate. Slow-and-steady may well be a positive outcome for shareholders.
In the 2030 financial year, CBA is forecast by UBS to generate $12.4 billion of net profit. That would be a rise of 14.2% between FY26 to FY30.
That's not enough for UBS, which has a sell rating on the CBA share price and a price target of $130, implying a sizeable decline over the next 12 months.
