National Irish Bank reports €586m loss, down from €600m last year

National Irish Bank has reported a loss of €586m for the nine months to the end of September, down from a loss of €600m in the same period last year.

The reduction is because of lower writedowns on the value of the bank's loan book. NIB set aside €578m to deal with troubled loans, compared to €630m a year ago.

The bank's losses are mainly concentrated in its commercial and investment-property loan books.

The bank says its €3bn mortgage portfolio is performing "satisfactorily".

The NIB name will disappear in a few weeks as the bank focuses on corporate and small to medium businesses.

Its customer deposits are down from about €5bn last year to €3bn, but the bank says that in the current quarter, the deposits have held relatively steady and that it is pleased with that performance.