LONDON (Alliance News) - Permanent TSB Group Holdings PLC on Wednesday swung to a annual profit for the first time "in a decade," amid a significant increase in new lending volumes.
The Irish lender reported pretax profit of EUR52.0 million for 2017, compared with a pretax loss of EUR226.0 million in 2016, as net interest income rose to EUR405.0 million from EUR390.0 million.
Permanent TSB said new lending volumes were up 74% to around EUR1.03 billion from EUR591 million, with 42,000 new current accounts opened, due to a strong increase in mortgage market share.
Current account balances increased by 10% over the year to EUR3.8 billion.
Permanent's impairment charge for 2017 was EUR49.0 million, compared with a impairment write-back of EUR68.0 million a year ago, driven by model changes associated with non-performing loans.
"I am pleased to report a successful commercial year for the Bank where we have lent over EUR1 billion to the Irish economy. This is an increase of over 70% year-on-year. Crucially, we have regained our natural market share in the residential mortgage market; this has increased to 12.6% in 2017 from a low single digit in 2012. We are also reporting our first full year profit in a decade of EUR40 million," said Chief Executive Jeremy Masding.
"Against the backdrop of a growing Irish economy, the Bank's results show that we are making steady progress towards building a focused, low risk business that delivers shareholder value through providing outstanding service to our customer," Masding added.
Shares in Permanent TSB were down 2.7% at EUR1.90 on Wednesday.
