24th Feb 2025 09:32
(Alliance News) - Bank of Ireland Group PLC on Monday increased its annual dividend, despite slightly lower profit, as it said the underlying business is healthy.
The Dublin-based lender reported pretax profit of EUR1.86 billion in 2024, down 4.3% from EUR1.94 billion in 2023. Operating profit declined by 7.6% to EUR2.22 billion from EUR2.40 billion, as net interest income edged down 3.2% to EUR3.57 billion from EUR3.68 billion.
Underlying pretax profit rose 5.3% to EUR2.13 billion in 2024 from EUR2.02 billion in 2023, thanks to net impairments of financial instruments being cut to EUR123 million from EUR403 million. But statutory pretax profit was reduced by EUR275 million in non-core items, up from EUR85 million of such costs in 2023.
Bank of Ireland declared a 28 euro cents final dividend, resulting in a full-year payout of 63 cents, up 5.0% from 60 cents in 2023.
Looking ahead to 2025, Bank of Ireland guided for net interest income of greater than EUR3.25 billion, meaning a maximum decline of 9.0% from 2024. The bank also guided for a 3% increase in operating expenses and for non-core costs of EUR100 million to EUR125 million.
"We are now two-thirds of the way through our current strategic cycle and continue to meet or beat all our business targets," said Chief Executive Officer Myles O'Grady, adding:
"The group enters 2025 with momentum across all business lines. Notwithstanding potential impacts to global trade, our business model continues to be highly capital generative for the coming year and beyond, supporting customer growth, business model investment and attractive shareholder returns."
Bank of Ireland shares were up 4.2% to EUR10.77 in London early Monday.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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