Hi °C | Lo °C Bank of Ireland yesterday revealed plans to hike its mortgage rates after posting losses of almost €3bn (£2.67bn) for the nine months to the end of last year.
Following in the footsteps of fellow Irish lender AIB, chief executive Richie Boucher warned charges were set to rise following the plunge into the red.
But the bank boss refused to be drawn on the size and timing of the increase.
“Mortgage rates will go up,” he said.
“We believe that the most appropriate way to deal with that type of communication is if and when it happens, and very clearly to our customers.”
In its preliminary results, the bank said it was hit with an impairment charge of just over €4bn (£3.55bn) on its loan assets.
More than half of these were loans being shifted to the Republic’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). Bank of Ireland had an underlying operating profit of €1.05bn (£935.6m) for the nine months to the end of December — before the impairment charges were applied.
The figure has nosedived 28% on the same period the year |before.
Once the impairment charges were taken into consideration, the bank suffered pre-tax losses of €1.813bn euro (£1.6bn) or an underlying pre-tax loss of €2.972bn (£2.6bn).
