Northern Bank becomes Danske Bank

Published Thursday, 10 May 2012

Northern Bank will be rebranded as Danske Bank from the end of this year.

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It will take on the name of its Danish parent company as part of a restructuring of its operations across Northern Ireland and the Republic.

National Irish Bank will also be rebranded as Danske.

Eivind Kolding from the company said: "It is not without sadness that we say goodbye to the Northern Bank brand name and replace it with Danske Bank.

"Northern Bank is a long-established and well-respected brand, but with our new organisational set-up, our overall ambition is to create an even better bank for our customers that is internationally recognised for its strength and expertise."

Meanwhile the bank announced it is writing off over £75m, leaving it with a loss of £55m for the first quarter of 2012 over bad debts.

Operating profits before impairments and provisions were up to £18m, representing a 51% increase - but that was hit by impairment charges of £72.5m.

Chief Executive Officer Gerry Mallon said the local economy "remains fragile" and this reflects the continued level of impairment charges.

He said: "I am very pleased with the strong underlying performance of our business, with profit up 51% and income and costs moving strongly in the right direction.

"However, we are not immune to the environment in which we operate. National and international market conditions remain challenging and have led to a continued high level of impairment charges.

"There is no doubt that 2012 will be a tough year for Northern Ireland, with continued low economic growth, low interest rates and a sluggish property market leading to elevated impairment charges.

"Our clear direction, competitive products and services and appetite for growth we are also well equipped to strengthen our market position further."

Comments

4 Comments

Realist in England wrote (401 days ago):

Danish Hindsight - uniting businesses on an all-Ireland basis will make savings and, if those are passed on, that will be better for consumers. Foreigners can probably see the economic merit in that better than we can in our 'everything must be/must not be all Ireland' mindsets. The problem here is not with the all-Ireland connection. It is with the non-Ireland connection. Foreigners will ultimately and understandably put their own interests before the interests of the Irish people. Whilst they can rake in mega-kroner from us, they will continue to do so. If the cash flow stops, they'll leave us high and dry faster than you can dismantle a bank made from a certain popular Danish brand of toy brick. C'est la vie. Ryan - 'active' is a strange choice of word. I agree that they still exist and that they are doing stuff as an organisation but, if you mean to imply that they are engaging in anything overtly 'military' in nature, then I think you are wrong. What have they changed their name to, in your opinion? I'd say that they are simply not claiming responsibility for any of their criminal escapades - rather like any other criminal outfit. Any former members engaged in any non-profit-making 'military' actions under a different name are presumably exactly that - former members.

Ryan in Belfast wrote (402 days ago):

they still going strong Realist - anyone who believes they aint still active is a fool... like the northern bank they had a name change - thats all.

DANISH HINDSIGHT in Belfast wrote (403 days ago):

I suspect that with Northern Bank's Danish owners rapidly closing it's smaller branches in the Northern Ireland network..and the slashing of the National Irish Bank network to just some 20 or so branches...then this is a good cover for amalgamating the North & South operations into one business operation with a combined total of just around 90 branches in the whole of Ireland.Big savings to be had in Head Office functions not to mention duplication of CEOs etc.etc......however let's hope that they save Northern Ireland branches from the castration of services already seen in National Irish Bank e.g. NO cash handled in those branches and shortly NO cheque lodgments to be handled in branch either.The Danes are trying to slash costs to justify their buying the Irish Banks 6 years ago....again let's hope they remember the poor old customer in the middle of all this....especially since they have contributed millions of £££££££ profit to the bank in the past.

Realist in England wrote (404 days ago):

I doubt the Provos will welcome this as I guess another new issue/removal of all Northern banknotes from circulation will make it even harder to dispose of any remaining from their unofficial withdrawal a while back..