National Irish Bank and Northern Bank have contributed to the profits of their new owner Danske Bank just a month after their takeover.

The €1.4 billion deal cleared the regulatory authorities at the end of February.

In an update yesterday, Denmark's largest financial group said it booked pre-tax profits of €4 million from National Irish Bank in March while Northern Bank had pre-tax profits of £3 million (€4.4 million).

While Danske has promised to introduce a range of new bank products in its effort to increase the scale of the Irish operations, it indicated yesterday that its current priority was to appoint a new chief executive at National Irish Bank and merge the two banks' IT systems with its own.

NCB Stockbrokers analyst Dave Odlum said: "The bigger push will be next year. There's still a lot of work to be done. It's very early stages for them."

Headhunters are currently assessing expressions of interest in the National Irish Bank position from a number of senior bank industry figures.

Dankse said in a commentary on figures for the three-month period ending March 30th that the conversion of the banks' IT systems was proceeding as planned.

The expected integration cost is unchanged at some €201.6 million.

"The integration of the two banks in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland progresses according to schedule, and we still expect to complete the migration of data systems and the integration in general by the end of 2006," said Danske chief executive Peter Straarup.

However, in a briefing pack made available for a conference call with analysts, Danske indicated that this process could be over as early as Easter 2006.

Danske reported a 33 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to 4.2 billion Danish crown (€564 million) and attributed part of the rise to the consolidation of the two Irish banks.

Lending at National Irish Bank grew at a faster pace than at Northern Bank, Danske said, adding that both operations recorded a "slight inflow" of customers in the period since the end of September.

National Irish Bank lending stood at 25 billion Danish krone (€3.35 billion) at the end of March. Danske said this reflected a 10 per cent increase in retail lending and a 14 per cent rise in corporate lending on the previous six-month period.

Northern Bank lending stood at 36 billion crown at the end March, reflecting a 1 per cent rise in retail lending and a 6 per cent rise on the corporate side.

NIB will be divided into five geographical locations this year, while Northern Bank will be divided into four regions.