https://ift.tt/bWoYMju Of Ireland Posts Biggest Profit In Over 10 Years – Cryptovibes.com – Daily Cryptocurrency and FX News

Since the global financial crisis happened more than a decade ago, Bank of Ireland (BIRG.I) on February 28 posted its largest yearly profit and it said that it plans to return to shareholders 104 million euros ($116 million) through dividends and buybacks.

When Ireland’s biggest lender by assets set aside 1.1 billion euros to cover possible loan defaults owing to COVID-19 disruption, it swung to an underlying full-year pretax profit of 1.37 billion euros from a 374 million euro loss in 2021.

Profits almost doubled from pre-pandemic 758 million euros in 2019 aided by the lender writing back 194 million euros of those provisions. Previously, since the Irish banking crisis, the bank’s highest profit was 1.2 billion euros in 2015.

Its strategy to cut costs to 1.5 billion euros by the end of next year and deliver a sustainable return on tangible equity (ROTE) above 10% was strongly endorsed by a 12% rise in income year on year and a 4% drop in costs, according to Finance chief Myles O’Grady.

The bank said that last year’s ROTE of 12.8% reflected the impairment writebacks and strong business performance.

Over the course of 2022, O’Grady expects the European Central Bank (ECB) to increase interest rates. The annual net interest income would be boosted by 274 million euros translating to a 100 basis point, the Bank of Ireland said in an updated estimate.

With impairment charges expected to be below normalized levels and total income expected to be in line with 2021 while distributions increase and costs continue to fall, the bank said this years’ outlook is positive.

As the Belgian group KBC’s (KBC.BR) exits the shrinking Irish market, Bank of Ireland is also in the process of buying most of its performing Irish assets. There was no indication yet that competition authorities would set any conditions to approve the deal, as mentioned by O’Grady.

($1 = 0.8952 euros)