KBC sets aside €129m for losses

KBC Bank Ireland set aside €129m to cover loan losses in the third quarter of this year.

While this figure marks an ongoing improvement on the year’s previous quarters — impairment charges of €195m and €136m being taken in the first and second quarters, respectively — the Belgian banking group still foresees its Irish business taking a loan loss hit of between €500m and €600m for 2012, as a whole.

This would largely be in line with last year’s total charge of €510m for KBC Ireland.