NIB SEES POSSIBLY WORST EVER YEAR FOR IRISH BANKING - There were some more colourful descriptions of how awful it is to be a banker in Ireland this morning - this time from National Irish Bank, which has 4% of the market here. National Irish Bank announced a pre-tax loss of €661m for the 12 months to the end of December. After what the bank called possibly the worst year in Irish banking history, National Irish Bank said that its income fell by 13% to €178m and it has set aside €704m for impairment charges. The bank posted an operating profit - before impairment charges - of €42m, a fall of 42% from the previous year. Last December, NIB said it was closing 25 of its 58 branches in Ireland with the loss of 150 jobs.
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FINANCE BILL TO BE PUBLISHED TODAY - The Finance Bill will be published later today and there is much anticipation that this one will be especially significant for business. The Bill will give legal effect to measures announced in the December Budget.
The chief executive of the Irish Taxation Institute, Mark Redmond, says he is hoping for a message of certainty around tax policy to attract talent into Ireland in areas like financial services. He says that Ireland is less tax competitive on tax incentives than other countries for attracting talent. He also wants to see a continuation of the exemption of corporation tax for small start up businesses and measures to ensure that it is efficient for them to employ staff.
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MORNING BRIEFS - The ECB is widely expected to keep rates unchanged at 1% at its meeting today as financial woes in Greece, Portugal and Spain endanger the currency bloc's recovery.
*** Aviva, which owns Hibernian, says the cost of claims arising from last year's floods has been around £80m sterling, that is equivalent to €92m at today's exchange rate.
*** US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke was sworn in yesterday to a second term as he called for the bank to retain its independence and urged reforms to ensure a major financial crisis 'never again' occurs. Bernanke was formally sworn in for a second four-year term as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System after a bruising confirmation battle that ended with a 70-30 Senate vote last week approving his nomination.
*** Toyota's miseries only got worse last night as the biggest car seller in the US saw its share price slide 6%. The US Transportation Secretary appeared to advise owners of more than five million Toyota cars including the Corolla and the Yaris, to stop driving them over the faulty accelerator controversy. He later clarified his comments with Toyota forced to issue still more assurances. Toyota then said it was looking at a potential brake problem on the Prius - a model unaffected by the slippy floor pads and faulty accelerator pedals. Toyota said it was investigating several dozen complaints since December over what drivers said was insufficient braking while driving over bumpy or frozen roads.
*** Meanwhile, Toyota upped its previous forecast for car sales for the financial year to the end of March to 7.18 million vehicles - 150 million more than previously guided by the company with a big increase in US sales thanks to the stimulus plan there to get people buying more fuel efficient cars.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is at $1.38 66 US cents, close to a seven-month low of $1.3851 earlier this week.
