National Irish Bank reported a pretax loss of €468 million for the nine months to the end of September as impairment charges on commercial property loans continued to mar its balance sheet.
The bank, owned by the Danske Bank Group, was forced to set aside loan impairment charges of €504 million, up from €367 million at the end of June.
NIB reported an operating profit before impairment charges of €36 million, down 25 per cent on the same period last year.
Income fell 11 per cent to €124 million due to reduced customer demand, the impact of impaired loans and lower deposit margins. Costs fell by 3 per cent to €88 million because of a restructuring programme.
National Irish Bank chief executive Andrew Healy said conditions in the banking market continue to be “very difficult”.
“Our priority is the implementation of our restructuring programme which is on track to complete by the end of the year,”he said.
“We’ve taken early and decisive action to reduce our costs and reposition National Irish in a banking market that is undergoing massive change. Loan impairments remain at elevated levels, though we believe they peaked in the first half of this year.”
The bank is on track to close 25 of its 58 branches in the Republic in accordance with a restructuring plan announced late last year.
Some 13 of the 25 branches earmarked for closure have shut down. Staff numbers are on track to fall by 150 – or 25 per cent – with most of the redundancies taking place in the last quarter.
National Irish Bank’s total loan book was €9.8 billion at the end of September, down 7 per cent on last year.
Its commercial property loans amounted to €3.3 billion, from which most of NIB’s loan impairment charges stem.
NIB said its €3.6 billion mortgage book remained relatively strong with less than 250 customers in arrears.
Total deposits amounted to €4.3 billion, a reduction of 2 per cent.
Danske Bank Group announced a 44 per cent year on year increase in pretax profit to €671 million.
The bank set aside €1.45 billion for loan impairment charges, down from €2.78 billion in the same period last year.
