AIB has transferred an additional €9.3 billion in loans to the National Asset Management Agency, at an aggregate discount of 59 per cent.

The loans cover 217 customers, the bank said today.

AIB has already moved €9.2 billion in loans to Nama, meaning a total of €18.5 billion has been transferred to date.

A spokeswoman for AIB said that the bank did not yet know how many more loans would be transferred to Nama or the scale of the loans involved.

The Government dropped the €20 million threshold for land, development and related loans under last month's agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, bringing another €16 billion in loans into Nama from AIB and Bank of Ireland.

AIB had previously planned to transfer almost €20 billion in loans to Nama but this will increase substantially following the change. The bank has about €4.4 billion of eligible loans in the €5 million to €20 million range which will be moved to Nama.

It is not know what total land and development loans of less than €5 million each are at the bank.

Although the Central Bank imposed new capital core tier 1 ratios of 12 per cent for Irish banks, it said it wanted AIB to maintain a ratio of 14 per cent to cover future loan losses.

The bank has seen its deposits decline by about €13 billion since the start of the year due to concerns about the financial difficulties of the Government and the banking system.

Some €12 billion were withdrawn, mostly by institutional and corporate depositors, since the end of June.