Best bank: Allied Irish Banks
The awards period marked a triumphant return to performance for Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Ireland’s best bank. Putting behind it its involvement in the years-long industry-wide tracker mortgage scandal in Ireland, for which it was fined €100 million in 2022, the bank posted a very strong recovery in 2023, with record profits that nearly tripled versus the previous year. Revenues rose 62%, driven by net interest income that was up more than 80%.
AfE 2024
The bank is in the best shape it has been in since the dark days when it was bailed out by the Irish government during the global financial crisis; and 2023 marked the significant step of returning to majority private ownership, with the government stake falling below 50%. At the time of writing it has fallen further still, to around 33%.
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