Best bank 2025: Bank of Ireland
Bank of Ireland demonstrated impressive growth figures driven by a dynamic digital transformation and a clear commitment to sustainability.
Profit before tax rose to €1.9 billion and adjusted return on tangible equity hit 16.8% – comfortably above its 15% target. A tight cost-to-income ratio of 46% and 310 basis points of organic capital generation left the bank distributing €1.2 billion to shareholders, equivalent to 14% of its year-end market value, underscoring both earnings quality and balance sheet resilience.
The bank’s loan book expanded by more than 6%, led by a mortgage portfolio that now commands roughly 40% of the domestic market. Deposit balances improved to €103.1 billion and wealth assets surged 19% to €54.8 billion as net inflows of €4 billion demonstrated renewed customer trust.
A record net promoter score of +25 and a best-ever colleague engagement index of 75 highlight customer experience improvements, while a sharper focus on process efficiency pushed the customer-effort score to +60 and drove a 21% fall in complaints.
These scores can be attributed to the bank’s accelerating digital transformation. Specifically, real-time payment alerts, enhancements to the bank’s Mi365 money-management tool and the deployment of generative-artificial intelligence insights for frontline staff have all had tangible impact on improving customer experience
Investments in technology have also helped improve client interactions. More than 30 digital journey upgrades in 2024 helped push digital adoption on new business flows to 91%, while activity on the self-service mortgage hub increased 160% year on year.
Physical channels have not been neglected. A €55 million commitment backed an equity fund to ease financing bottlenecks for homebuilders, €600 million of fresh debt was approved for the same sector, and the bank began rolling out 664 state of the art ATMs – the largest such investment in a decade – to every branch across the island, reinforcing a hybrid model that blends digital convenience with community presence.
Additionally, the franchise continued to make tangible steps on its sustainability journey. Sustainable finance lending climbed 32% to €14.7 billion, keeping the bank on course for its €15 billion 2025 goal. The EcoSaver mortgage, launched last year, incentivises borrowers to retrofit homes for energy efficiency, marrying credit growth with the national climate agenda.
Best investment bank 2025: Citi
Citi recorded a standout year for investment banking activity in Ireland, marked by its leading role in landmark transactions across M&A, equity capital markets and debt financing.
Arguably the firm’s most significant engagement was acting as lead financial adviser to Smurfit Kappa on its $20 billion merger with WestRock – the largest Irish deal of 2024 and the second largest in the country’s corporate history. Citi not only advised on the transaction but also underwrote the acquisition financing and led the capital markets takeout, underscoring its central role in the deal’s execution and financing.
In equity capital markets, Citi was at the forefront of such transactions as the €593 million secondary accelerated equity offering in AIB Group. Acting as joint active bookrunner, Citi helped structure and place the deal, which maintained continuity with past offerings and attracted strong demand from existing and top-tier institutional investors. The transaction also prompted an MSCI index rebalancing, highlighting its broader market significance.
Citi also demonstrated strength in debt capital markets, leading 10 transactions that raised a total of $16.9 billion, alongside $9.9 billion across five loan and acquisition financing deals. A notable example was the $2 billion triple-tranche senior secured notes issuance for ICON plc. Citi delivered record demand of over $15 billion, enabling ICON to price significantly inside initial guidance. The deal gave ICON a bond market benchmark and supported refinancing just after a credit rating upgrade.
Best investment bank for DCM 2025: BNP Paribas
Over the past year BNP Paribas has deepened its status as Ireland’s foremost debt capital markets adviser. Longstanding relationships with corporate and institutional treasurers have translated into a larger share of new issue activity and a steady flow of lead mandates across investment grade, high yield, financial, sovereign agency and green financing. Its integrated green, sustainability-linked and M&A-focused structuring capabilities have become a reference point for Irish borrowers seeking international distribution.
This momentum was exemplified by Smurfit Kappa’s landmark green triple-tranche bond, raised to pre-fund the group’s combination with WestRock. Acting as global coordinator, the bank mobilised teams in Dublin and New York to open the US market to the issuer, increasing the deal size on the back of a heavily oversubscribed orderbook and setting a fresh benchmark for transatlantic green M&A financing.
The bank championed several debut issues on the Irish market. It notably led inaugural public bonds for DCC and Kingspan, guiding both companies’ transition from private placements to the euro benchmark arena. Despite periods of politically driven volatility, the bank timed execution to attract substantial, high-quality books dominated by blue-chip asset managers, enabling each client to diversify funding and secure longer tenors on competitive terms.
In the financial institutions space, the bank introduced Permanent TSB to the green bond market with its first holding company senior instrument. A carefully choreographed marketing campaign generated demand many times the offer size and allowed pricing inside secondary comparables, giving the lender its tightest spread to date while underscoring investor recognition of its evolving sustainability profile.
Best digital bank 2025: Revolut
Revolut continued to build on its existing strength in the Irish market. Customer numbers hit three million in December, meaning three-quarters of adults and a third of children now bank with the fintech. Business clients reached 27,500, up a third on 2023. The local loan book doubled to about €550 million, surging from a €28 million 2023 loss to a €503 million profit as revenues neared €2 billion.
Product momentum was equally sharp. In May the firm took on pillar banks with an instant access savings account paying up to 3.49 %, letting users shuttle funds between current and savings pots at will. In October the bank debuted the Revolut Terminal, a pocket-sized point-of-sale device now in pre-order for Irish retailers that broadens in-store card acceptance. Credit card lending also accelerated, with Irish card sales surging 87 % during the year.
On the commercial side, Revolut Business captured an estimated 4% to 6 % share of the small and medium-sized enterprise current account market, helped by integrations with QuickBooks and Sage and by daily paid interest of up to 2% on new instant access business savings pots.
Revolut also made concrete investments in its rails. A late-2024 hiring drive pushed its crypto and digital assets workforce past 100, with Dublin flagged as a core engineering hub, underscoring plans to embed tokenised services locally. Operationally, the Irish unit was reorganised under a new country lead, Malcolm Craig, while management mapped out a 2025 mortgage launch, showing confidence in the upgraded lending platform.
Best digital bank for large corporates 2025: Bank of America
Bank of America has improved its offering to large corporate sector clients in Ireland by advancing its cash management platform CashPro.
Over the review period, Irish-based multinationals contributed to a 26% jump in total mobile sign-ins and helped push payment approvals through the CashPro application past the $1 trillion mark for the first time, demonstrating both higher client acquisition and heavier day-to-day reliance on the bank’s treasury technology.
Much of that momentum is being engineered in Dublin, where the CashPro team enhanced the self-service onboarding tool CashPro Validator. By adding support for new payment types and file formats, the Irish development hub cut typical implementation times and lifted straight-through processing rates, allowing for faster integration of new entities and payment flows.
Additionally, CashPro Insights now mines the vast amount of data flowing through the platform to deliver real-time security scores, industry benchmarks and balance alerts. Treasurers can act on recommendations with a single click, reducing manual key performance indicator production and accelerating decision making, as early adopters such as Continental have testified.
Client working capital capabilities were further developed thanks to the 2024 Europe, Middle East and Africa launch of Virtual Payables Direct. The solution lets buyers retain the extended terms of card programmes while allowing suppliers to receive funds by direct bank transfer, removing the need for technical card acceptance and offering corporates greater flexibility for large or last-minute purchases. The functionality has already attracted strong interest from manufacturers and pharmaceutical firms alike.
Finally, Bank of America has introduced improvements to currency and liquidity management. A rebuilt electronic FX stack provides low-latency algorithmic execution, while the extension of guaranteed FX rates to one-year tenors lets companies lock in cross-border margins through CashPro or Swift without additional technology investment.
Best bank for ESG 2025: Bank of Ireland
Bank of Ireland advanced its environmental, social and governance agenda in 2024 with a series of important developments across sustainable finance, decarbonisation, social inclusion and financial literacy.
The bank made marked progress toward its green finance goals, increasing sustainability-related lending by 32% to €14.7 billion, keeping it well ahead of pace to reach its €15 billion target by 2025 and aligning with its longer term ambition of €30 billion by 2030. This momentum was reinforced by the launch of new products such as the EcoSaver mortgage, which incentivises customers to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
The bank continued to deepen its commitment to sustainable agriculture, expanding its Enviroflex sustainability-linked loans beyond the dairy sector into tillage and partnering with local cooperatives to increase uptake. Bank of Ireland also backed significant renewable energy infrastructure, providing €65 million in financing to the Moray West offshore wind project, which will generate power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes in the UK. The lender also played a key role in financing Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme, which saw one billion bottles and cans returned for recycling in its first year.
Additionally, Bank of Ireland maintained a strong focus on emissions reduction. It remains the only Irish retail bank with greenhouse gas reduction targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), covering both its own operations and financed emissions. By the end of 2024, emissions intensity in key portfolios – Irish mortgages, commercial real estate and electricity generation – was demonstrably progressing toward 2030 goals. Furthermore, the bank surpassed its 2025 target early, with 25% of its corporate lending customers now having SBTs of their own in place.
On the social side, the bank sustained its leadership in financial education, supporting more than 28,000 adults and running over 140 fraud awareness events across branches. It also crossed a major threshold in youth financial literacy, with participation in its schools programme reaching over 600,000 students since 2017. Furthermore, the fifth year of the bank’s Begin Together fund saw €500,000 directed to community groups across Ireland, with a focus on marginalised populations.
