KBC Bank Ireland has reported a net loss of €37m for the fourth quarter of 2021 as it prepares to leave the Irish market.
It brings to €298m the bank's total loss for last year.
The bulk of the losses were driven by the cost of its plans to withdraw from Ireland.
Last April, KBC Bank Ireland said it was in discussions about the possible sale of its performing loan assets and liabilities to Bank of Ireland.
KBC said the deal, if coupled with a separate sale of its non-performing mortgage loan portfolio, would ultimately result in the bank's withdrawal from the Irish market.
In October Bank of Ireland agreed to buy around €8.8 billion worth of performing mortgages, €100m worth of performing commercial and consumer loans, €4.4 billion of deposits and around €300m of non-performing loans from KBC.
That proposed deal is currently undergoing a phase 2 competition probe by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
Earlier this week the bank said it had also finalised a deal first announced in August for the sale of a non-performing mortgage loan portfolio of about €1.1 billion to in a transaction financed by funds managed by CarVal Investors.
The loans are mainly non-performing home mortgages and buy to let mortgages.
Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) will be managing the loans as legal title holder.
The bank said took a net impairment charge of €18m on its Irish operations in the fourth quarter, on top of a €165m charge in the third quarter.
This was partly offset by a €4m reversal of its provision for expected losses arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its impaired loan portfolio decreased by roughly €37m between the third and fourth quarters, resulting in the impaired loan ratio reducing to 12% at year end.
It also recorded a €16m one-off cost in the fourth quarter arising from the pending loan sales here.
This followed it booking €81m in one-off staff related costs for the same reason in the third quarter.
The tracker mortgage review led the bank to put aside an additional €4m in the final three months of the year to meet the cost of successful appeals.
Customer deposits fell 2% across the year, but the value of its mortgages remained stable.
Overall, the Belgian bank group reported a profit after tax of €663m for the three months to the end of December, up from €538m the same time in 2020.
