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Best bank: Allied Irish |
Although the end of the property and construction boom made it a worrying year for Irish banks, Allied Irish has managed to turn in decent results and post gains in market share across a number of segments in its home market including business lending, personal lending, residential mortgages and deposit.
The bank’s private banking business has also put in a good performance, growing deposits and loans by more than 25% in 2007.
Allied Irish has also been successful in keeping a lid on impaired loans, which rose just 0.1 percentage points to 0.7%. The bank also managed to improve its cost/income ratio to 48% from 49.6% the year before.
HSBC has been the leading debt house in Ireland, working on landmark deals such as the Republic of Ireland’s €6 billion benchmark issue, the first such syndicated deal by the government since joining the eurozone, and a wide range of financial institution deals for Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank and Allied Irish Bank.