Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce reported first quarter earnings of $799-million, or $1.92 a share, up from $652-million, or $1.58 a share in the previous year amid rising performance from the retail banking operation.

The country's fifth biggest bank and the first to report on the three months ended Jan. 31 also said it expects to meet new capital requirements laid out by the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision ahead of schedule.

The results exceeded analysts' estimates.

"We believe that CIBC’s earnings represent a solid start to the Canadian banks’ first quarter earnings and should buoy valuations for the group," said John Aiken, an analyst at Barclays Capital. "Given CIBC’s largely domestic operations, it is difficult to fully extrapolate its results to the group, however, by and large the performances of its retail and wholesale banking divisions does bode well for the group."

“CIBC delivered strong results this quarter, with broad-based performance across our core businesses in Retail Markets and Wholesale Banking,” Gerry McCaughey, the chief executive, said in a statement.

The retail bank had net income of $627-million for the quarter, up $100-million on higher lending as the bank benefitted from the recent acquisition of the Mastercard portfolio.

Provisions for credit losses were $275-million, compared with $367-million in the same period of last year on lower write-offs in the credit card and personal lending businesses.

In the face of more more normal markets and tougher regulation all the banks are looking increasingly to plain vanilla lending operations as a major earnings driver. However many analysts worry that strategy may run into problems as Canada's over-leveraged consumers look to pay down debt over the coming years.

CIBC's wholesale banking operation had a profit of $136-million, down from $184-million last year on losses from the structured credit portfolio that were partly offset by a $27-million jump in capital markets revenue.

The bank said that despite new rules from the Basel Committee that will eliminate certain types of hybrid securities from Tier 1 capital, CIBC will meet the new requirements ahead of the regulatory timetable.