Bank of Ireland has said its trading since the start of the year has been in line with its expectations.
Addressing the bank's Annual General Court in Dublin, Chairman Archie Kane said the lender was benefiting from continuing momentum both in Ireland and the UK.
He also said asset quality trends have improved largely because of a favourable economic environment.
Mr Kane told today's meeting that Bank of Ireland was the biggest lender into the Irish economy in 2014.
In his opening address to the bank's Annual General Court, Mr Kane also said the bank had doubled UK mortgage lending in the year.
He said the bank''s defaulted loans were down by €4 billion from the peak and stood at €14.3 billion at the end of 2014.
Mr Kane said the bank would continue to strive to help those in arrears. The bank's objective was to keep people in their homes but to work out a solution whereby the bank would recover its money, he added.
Richie Boucher, the Bank of Ireland chief executive, told delegates at the bank's general court that the lender will not be reducing variable interest rates on mortgages.
Mr Boucher said the bank would focus on emphasising fixed rate offers. He said a householder with a mortgage on a property with a 75% Loan-to-value ratio would get a three year fixed rate half a percent lower than the bank's variable rate offering.
The CEO was responding to consumer advocate Brendan Burgess who accused the bank of fleecing customers on variable rates.
He said it was time to dramatically reduce interest rates to customers in the Republic of Ireland and compared rates in the North. The lowest rate on offer there was 1.99% compared to 3.7% here.
Bank of Ireland issues interim management statement
Bank of Ireland has said that the group's trading has been in line with its expectations in the months since December 2014.
In an interim management statement, the bank said that its asset quality trends have also continued to improve, due to the favourable economic conditions as well as its actions to work with customers who have fallen into mortgage arrears.
The bank said its defaulted loan volumes at the end of March were lower than the levels seen at the end of last year. It said it expects impairment charges to continue to move towards "normalised levels" during the rest of the year.
Bank of Ireland said its loan volumes grew to €85 billion in April compared to €82 billion at the end of December with the rise in the value of sterling contributing €3 billion.
But it added that lower interest rates and a weaker euro - due to the ECB's quantative easing programme - have presented some challenges, like lower yields on assets and bond yields.
Its capital levels were hit by a net increase in the deficit of its defined benefit pension schemes to around €1.7 billion from €1 billion at the end of last year. The bank cited the impact of quantitative easing for the sharp rise.
In today's trading update, Bank of Ireland said new lending continued to grow in line with expectations, as did trading in general with net interest margin growing modestly.
The bank said its Core Tier 1 capital ratio - a measure of financial strength - stood at 14.6%, or 11.7% under the fully loaded Basel III ratios, both down slightly since December.
Like most of its rivals, Bank of Ireland made a profit last year for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to growth in new lending and a claw-back of money set aside for bad loans.
BoI raises €1bn in bond sale
Separately, Bank of Ireland says it has raised €1bn through the sale of a seven year covered bond at a yield of 0.426%.
The bond is covered by Irish residential mortgages.
Shares in the bank were 6.2% lower in Dublin trade today.
