British mortgage bank Northern Rock said new balances in its Irish savings accounts jumped 30 per cent to a record in the first half of this year as online deposit accounts grew in popularity.
Balances at the bank's Dublin operation rose to €1.94 billion from €1.5 billion at the end of 2005, Northern Rock said yesterday. Irish savers deposited €445 million in new funds during the six-month period.
More than one in three of the bank's customers in Ireland now has an internet account, while the remaining customers manage their accounts by phone. The number of online accounts increased by more than one- third to about 9,000 in the six-month period, almost double the figure for the comparable period to June 2005.
Northern Rock opened an office in Ireland in November 1999, offering a variable rate demand account for personal customers. It now has 25,062 accounts and has at least six different types of savings accounts.
"To break these records while facing increased competition demonstrates the attractiveness of our savings range," said Andy Kuipers, Northern Rock's commercial director.
Online rival RaboDirect.ie said in May that Irish savers had placed €700 million with it in the Dutch bank's first year of business in the Republic, and that it was on track to exceed €1 billion worth of deposits in the following six months.
Northern Rock, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, also said yesterday that pretax profit for the entire group climbed 14.4 per cent to €395.9 million and upgraded its annual profit growth target as a result.
The bank, which focuses on providing cheap mortgages to customers with a good credit history, has been exploiting strong demand for remortgaging to grow its overall share of the UK market.
Net lending rose 22 per cent in the first half, giving Northern Rock an estimated 14.3 per cent share of the UK net residential mortgage lending market.
