ACCBank ploughs on despite poor results

It is probably just ACCBank's good luck that it issued its results in a week when the sector's focus was on the travails of First Active and the wisdom of Anglo Irish's interest in taking on such a poor patient.

ACC's results were dire. In a time of economic plenty and record bank earnings, its profits fell. Blaming the collapse of the merger with TSB - in many ways down to ACC itself - will not wash. The bank, which faces a hefty bill following the DIRT scandal, has yet to make any provision for this in its accounts. It may cite industry norms but not everyone in the industry is as certain of a day of reckoning as the cavalier State outfit.

Symptomatic of its problems is the rising cost/income ratio of 65.9 per cent - one of the sector's highest - at a time when others are reducing their figures. Worse still, planned restructuring over the next three years to slim down, get out of mainstream retail banking and make itself a viable takeover target will raise the cost/income ratio to the high 70s. This will fall to around 60 per cent at the end of the exercise, still grossly out of step with its peers.

Still, all is not gloom. As one wag said at the results' announcement: "If First Active can find a suitor, there's hope for ACC yet." I doubt the comparison will cheer Colm Darling, Padraic O'Connor and the management team.