Impaired loans won’t hold back acquisitions, says KBC Bank chief

The chief executive of KBC Bank Ireland has said its mortgage loan book is in better shape than may at first appear, and that a sizeable pile of impaired loans won’t stop it from eyeing Irish acquisitions.

Wim Verbraeken was speaking after the Irish operation posted €99m in net profits for the three months to the end of June, an outsized contribution to the €855m in profits earned by the Belgian group, whose operations also include the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

But the Irish profits were driven by huge write backs of loan loss provisions due to the surge in Irish house prices, and from successful cures applied to its restructured mortgages.