National Irish Bank has reported increased losses for the year to the end of December, as it continues to set aside money to cope with potential loan losses.
NIB, which is owned by Danske Bank, said its pre-tax losses for 2011 came to €805m as it set aside €850m for loan impairment charges. The bank had reported pre-tax losses of €618m in 2010, when it had set aside €667m for bad debts.
The bank said that its income fell by 13% to €141m due to reduced customer demand and the impact of impaired loans. Costs at NIB also fell, down 15% to €96m, on the back of the bank's restructuring programme.
Its operating profits, before impairment charges, for the year came to €45m, down 7% on the previous year.
NIB said its total loan book was down 9% to €8.6 billion. It said that commercial property loans came to €3.1 billion and accounted for most of its loan impairment charges. It added that the quality of its €3.3 billion mortgage book ''remained satisfactory''.
National Irish Bank's chief executive Andrew Healy said that 2011 was another challenging year for the bank. He said that impairment charges remained ''disappointingly high'' due mainly to continued falls in property prices.
NIB's parent bank, Danske Bank, said its pre-tax profit fell by 35% to €566m as it set aside over €1.7 billion for loan impairment charges.
