Bank of Ireland stuck to its full-year earnings guidance today after saying the impact of recent market turmoil had been modest during the first half of its business year.
The impact of recent market turmoil had been modest during the first half of its business year, says Bank of Ireland.
"Financial markets have been significantly dislocated since early August 2007," B of I said in a trading statement.
"The financial impact of this will be modest in our current half-year reporting period."
The company, which described its capital and funding positions as strong, said it expected to report underlying first-half earnings per share (EPS) growth of about 10 per cent when compared with the 73 cents reported a year earlier.
Excluding from last year's profit numbers, the contribution from broker Davy, which B of I sold last October, first-half EPS growth would be about 13 per cent, while underlying pretax profit would be up about 15 per cent year-on-year.
For the full year B of I said business trends remained strong, though guidance on its likely final result would depend on the impact of any further prolonged volatility in the financial markets.
"Subject to this, we reaffirm previous guidance of delivering low double-digit underlying EPS growth for the year to 31 March 2008," Bank of Ireland said.