The Central Bank said today that its top priority since last
year was working on a resolution of the Irish banking crisis. It reported a
profit for the year to December 31, 2010 of €840.9m compared with a
corresponding amount of €933.8m in 2009. €671m of the 2010 profit will be paid
to the Exchequer.
The Bank said in a continued low interest rate environment, both
the interest income and interest expense decreased in 2010. Interest income
dipped by €147.5m to €2.1bn while interest expense decreased by €188.3m to
€1.1bn. As a result, in 2010, the net interest income of the Bank increased by
€40.8m to €1.0bn.
The Bank said in its performance statement issued with its
Annual Report today: "Our priority during 2010 and 2011 has been and
continues to be to work towards the resolution of the financial crisis and
respond to the problems of under-capitalisation in the banking system. In March
2010, the Bank carried out the first round of the Prudential Capital Assessment
Review (PCAR) exercise to determine the forward-looking prudential capital
requirements of the Irish credit institutions covered by the Government
Guarantee.
The Bank required the banks to meet the higher of a base case
PCAR standard of 8% core Tier 1 and 7% equity or stress case 4% core Tier 1 by
the end of 2010, taking account of both losses arising from portfolios
transferred to NAMA and of projected expected losses on non-NAMA portfolios,
including mortgage portfolios up to 2012. The capital requirements were revised
in September to take account of the more severe NAMA haircuts and the
announcement of increased capital requirements under the Basel II protocol.
The total capital requirements amounted to €24.98bn in
respect of AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Life and Permanent, EBS, Irish Nationwide
and Anglo Irish Bank as set out in Table 1 below."
Central Bank Annual Report 2010 (pdf)
The Annual Report documents the activities and presents the annual accounts of
the Central Bank of Ireland for the year ended 31 December 2010
Annual Performance Statement Financial Regulation 2010 - 2011 (pdf)
The Annual Performance Statement documents the financial regulatory activities
undertaken during 2010 and planned for 2011