Welcome to Credit Corp's 2026 full year results presentation. I'm Thomas Beregi, the CEO of Credit Corp. Our objective is to lead in the credit-impaired consumer segment. We work with customers who've had trouble with credit, most having defaulted on a previous obligation. To succeed, we aim to stay ahead in three key areas. We operate at the risky end of the credit spectrum, which means we have to have well-developed analytics and the discipline to apply it objectively. Our customers require specialized approaches, which creates complexity and demands strong operations. We're more likely to encounter people in hardship or suffering from vulnerability, so we have to be very responsible and compliant to deliver on our promise to our debt sale clients, other stakeholders, and the community.
Applying these competencies, we target to deliver strong earnings growth into the future while producing acceptable returns, which we define as a return on equity of 16% with a conservative capital structure. We've got great metrics and approaches for each of these competencies across all our three businesses. Our efforts in the year just gone have delivered another strong result with great earnings growth and record profits. Our earnings grew by 12% to a record of $ 105.5 million. Earnings grew across all segments, the U.S. produced most of our growth, taking segment NPAT up by 57% to $ 26.2 million. We grew our assets while improving returns. Return on equity improved by two points to 13%. Our long-term goals remain intact with opportunities to expand across all segments and big addressable markets in the U.S. and some of our new lending products, and now the U.K.
There are some near-term challenges. Price increases on larger tenders in the U.S. will adversely impact our purchasing volume. Similarly, competition in Australian debt buying has intensified. In response, we'll maintain our pricing discipline, drive results from ongoing operational improvement, and focus our efforts on buying opportunities where we enjoy some advantages. Drilling down into our U.S. debt buying business, there is a lot to be pleased about. Collections were up by 24%, and segment return on equity lifted by a whole 2 percentage points. U.S. performance improved progressively with our asset turnover finishing the year within the range of our more established listed competitors. While market conditions mean we expect to invest less in the U.S., operational improvement will drive segment earnings growth in the year ahead. Consumer lending was also very strong.
Loan volume was up by 15%, and we closed the year with a formidable $510 million loan book. Lending segment earnings grew even after investing an additional $3.5 million post-tax in growth initiatives. Our new credit card product, Wizit, was rolled out at the start of the year, and it ended up accounting for 17% of our new customers. We're continuing to refine our settings there to ensure we hit our targeted mix. We also commenced lending operations in the U.K. The U.K. is a big opportunity because it's a much larger market than Australia, and it remains very underserved. We've got the people, we've got the premises, we've got the regulatory permissions, and we've built a scalable system with the first loans issued in July. After a prolonged period of contraction, our Australian-New Zealand debt buying business returned to growth.
A large one-off purchase helped lift investment by 50% over the prior year and grow segment earnings by 5%. While the market remains really competitive, we are starting the year with a solid pipeline, it looks like there will be some great opportunities to grow this significantly as the year progresses. We're in a strong capital position to seize any opportunities that may arise with more than $100 million in undrawn borrowing facilities and gearing of only 32% of the value of our financial assets. AI is a big part of our business improvement agenda. We've got a centralized approach to facilitation, governance, and key initiatives. At the same time, we've distributed a common enterprise toolset across our teams, and we've had some wins in areas like after-call work, where notes are now automated.
We're working on improving effectiveness by using all the insights gained from turning call recordings into structured data and analysis to ensure we can deliver better outcomes and improve skills. Just to finish up with our guidance for 2027, challenging conditions in the U.S. mean we're expecting to purchase less than we did in the year gone, so purchasing will fall to a range of $ 200 million-$ 280 million. Lending volume is expected to grow strongly to $ 445 million-$ 495 million. With ongoing operational improvement in the U.S., we're expecting net profit after tax in the range of $ 110 million-$118 million, which is growth in the range of 4%-12%. Thanks for your.