Bank of Scotland (Ireland) today announced pre-tax profits, excluding exceptional items, of €115.7m for the year to the end of December 2002. The figure is up 84% from the previous year.
The bank said the main driver of growth during 2002 was a significant increase in revenue across all of the bank's products - despite the difficult market conditions. The Banking, Capital Markets and Regional divisions performed particularly strongly and this trend has continued into 2003.
Bank of Scotland (Ireland) now employs 600 people here and lends into all the business sectors. It has over 18% market share of the business banking market in Ireland.
Mark Duffy, Chief Executive of BOSI, said the bank managed to increase profitability, maintain margins and credit quality, improve efficiencies and reduce its cost-income ratio during 2002.
On the issue of greater competition in the banking sector, Mr Duffy said that BOSI is confident that the current Competition Authority study will change this situation. 'We believe that the banking market is simply uncompetitive and the market is crying out for competition,' he said.
He said BOSI's key initiative in this regard will be its new current account. This will be launched in April.
HBOS, Bank of Scotland (Ireland's) parent, said its pre-tax profits, before exceptional items, rose 22% to £3.062 billion sterling - below market forecasts.
