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(Alliance News) - Bank of Ireland Group PLC on Wednesday said it saw better trading conditions in the third quarter ended September 30 than in the second quarter with new lending on the rise and good progress being made in numerous areas.
The Irish financial services group said new lending was up 59% quarter-on-quarter and business income was up 25%.
Net interest income in the nine months to end September was down 2% compared to the prior year. Bank of Ireland said this reflected lower new lending volumes and record low interest rates. Lower funding costs however supported net interest income, the bank added.
Bank of Ireland reported new lending of EUR9 billion, down 25% from approximately EUR11.25 billion a year prior.
Meanwhile, Bank of Ireland is moving ahead with its strategic plans.
Chief Executive Francesca McDonagh said: "We are delivering good progress on transformation, customer delivery, and operating cost. Examples include the roll-out of our new mobile app to iOS customers which follows the successful launch to Android users in May. Our cloud-based personal current account journey is now the largest channel for customers opening a current account, and we launched a fully digitised mortgage application process for first time buyers in July. We also completed a bank-wide voluntary redundancy scheme, which will deliver a step-change reduction to the bank's cost base."
Going forward, Bank of Ireland said: "Third-quarter trading was positive relative to expectations. Taking into account this positive trading, the potential impact of increased restrictions to control the pandemic and on-going uncertainties in relation to Brexit, our overall expectation for 2020 performance is unchanged."
Bank of Ireland shares were up 2.6% at EUR2.01 each in London on Wednesday morning in London.
By Greg Roxburgh; gregroxburgh@alliancenews.com
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