LONDON (Alliance News) - Bank of Ireland Friday said its pretax profit jumped in the first half of 2015, driven by increased lending and lower impairment charges for bad loans.
The Irish bank said it made a EUR725 million pretax profit in the six months to the end of June, compared with EUR399 million in the corresponding half of the prior year.
"We have grown our new lending by 50% and we continue to be the largest lender to the Irish economy. We also generated capital at a significant pace and further improved our asset quality," Chief Executive Richie Boucher said in a statement.
"We continue to be confident in the group's prospects. The quality of our retail and commercial franchises, the benefits of our diversified business model, our robust capital and funding, our commercially disciplined approach, the stability of our team and our clarity of purpose all combine to give us sustainable competitive advantage," Boucher added.
Bank Of Ireland said its CET1 fully loaded capital ratio rose by 180 basis points to 11.1% in the period, while its transitional CET1 ratio now stands at 15.9%, up 110 basis points.
The bank's shares were flat at EUR0.377 on Friday morning in London.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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