Bank of Ireland posted its biggest annual profit since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago and said it plans to return of $116.5 million (€104 million) to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
Ireland’s largest lender by assets swung to an underlying full-year pretax profit of $1.53 billion (€1.37 billion) from a $419 million (€374 million) loss in 2020 when it set aside $1.23 billion (€1.1 billion) to cover possible loan defaults owing to Covid-19 disruption.
It wrote back $217.3 million (€194 million) of those provisions, helping to almost double profits from the pre-pandemic $849 million (€758 million) in 2019. The bank’s previous highest profit since the Irish banking crisis was $1.34 billion (€1.2 billion) in 2015.
Finance chief Myles O’Grady told Reuters a 12 per cent rise in income year-on-year and a 4 per cent drop in costs was a strong endorsement of its strategy to cut costs to $1.68 billion (€1.5 billion) by the end of next year and deliver a sustainable return on tangible equity (ROTE) above 10 per cent.
Its ROTE was 12.8 per cent last year, which the bank said reflected a strong business performance and the impairment write backs.
O’Grady said he expects the European Central Bank (ECB) to increase interest rates over the course of 2022. In an updated estimate, Bank of Ireland said a 100 basis point rise would boost annual net interest income by $307 million (€274 million).
The bank said the outlook for 2022 is positive, with total income expected to be in line with 2021 and impairment charges to be below normalized levels while costs continue to fall and distributions increase.
Bank of Ireland is also in the process of buying most of KBC’s performing Irish assets as the Belgian group leaves the shrinking Irish market.
O’Grady said there was no indication yet that competition authorities would set any conditions to approve the deal. – Reuters