Bank of Ireland feels the pressure

Bank of Ireland said trading conditions were tough in the first quarter of the year due partly to high funding costs which put pressure on interest margins and operating income.

Ireland’s largest bank, the only lender to avoid nationalisation after the country’s property crash, said yesterday arrears in its Irish residential mortgage book continued to increase. But the bank still expects impairment charges to reduce from the £1.58bn reported last year.

Its private ownership means it will not be eligible to take part in a state plan to shift billions of euros worth of loss-making ‘tracker’ mortgages from the balance sheets of the country’s largest lenders, chief executive Richie Boucher said.

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“Trading conditions in the first quarter of 2012 remain challenging,” the bank said in a state-ment.

“Whilst consumer confidence surveys have shown improvements in the first three months, domestic economic indicators remain weak, unemployment remains elevated, and residential property prices do not appear, as yet, to have fully stabilised.”

Under the government’s latest restructuring plans, Bank of Ireland will form the core of a much pared-down industry beside Allied Irish Banks. But the fact it is controlled by private investors may block it from some state support.

Dublin wants to shift mortgages that track the ECB interest rate from state-run Allied and Irish Life and Permanent but Mr Boucher said that it did not come into the talks as it was not fully in state hands.

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