Danske Bank: 90% increase in profits in Northern Ireland

Danske Bank in Northern Ireland increased its pre-tax profit by 90% in the first nine months of this year.

The bank made £152m, compared to £80m in the same period last year.

Rising interest rates are generally good for bank profits, enabling banks to increase the "spread" between what they charge borrowers and pay to depositors.

Chief executive of Danske Bank, Vicky Davies, said it was "a strong set of results".

Despite households and businesses being squeezed by inflation and rising interest rates there is so far little evidence of the bank's customers being unable to repay loans.

The bank was able to "write back" £14m impairment charges.

Write-backs refer to money set aside to cover expected losses that can now be released as loans performed better than expected.

The bank saw the amount of money held on deposit fall marginally from £10.7bn to £10.5bn but this is still 39% higher than the level before the pandemic.

Total lending to customers was up by 4% year on year in the nine month period.

Meanwhile, the accountancy and professional services firm EY has reported a 31% increase in annual revenue for its island of Ireland operation.

Its earnings rose from €536m (£467m) in 2022 to €705m (£614m) for the year ending 30 June 2023.

EY Ireland saw its workforce across the island increase 19% to 5,035 people over the same period, the equivalent of 827 net new jobs.

Last month, the firm said it was creating 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland over the next five years in areas like cyber security and data analytics.