JP Morgan profits fall by half as IFSC cost base spirals

A sharp jump in the cost base at JP Morgan’s International Financial Services Centre unit wiped out more than half its profits last year, according to accounts filed at the Companies Registration Office.

JP Morgan Bank (Ireland), which provides treasury management and fund accounting services, saw its operating profits in 2012 slide from more than $26 million to just over $12 million.

Most of the drop is accounted for by a $12 million rise in its operating expenses. The CRO did not make available the notes for the accounts, which would have explained the slippage further. JP Morgan, however, referred to it as a “one-off” in the preamble to the financial statements.

Assets worth $260bn
The unit oversaw assets worth more than $260 billion from Dublin last year, a jump of $19 billion over the previous year. The mini bull-run on global markets in 2012 boosted the unit's "asset-based" commissions by $2 million, it said. Overall, however, revenues fell by almost $6 million to about $98 million.

The unit, which employs more than 500 staff in Dublin, is a highly lucrative part of JP Morgan’s international operations. The accounts show it is sitting on revenue reserves of more than $270 million.

The company, which is part of JP Morgan’s investment division, holds deposits of almost $1.4 billion and has a loan book of more than $1.7 billion.

The directors of its Dublin unit include Eilish Finan, a former executive at AIG in Dublin who sits on the board of the National Asset Management Agency. Her four-year term on the board expires at the end of this year.

The Irish operation is run by an American, Carin Bryans, who was among the original staff to have launched the unit 22 years ago.