NATIONAL IRISH Bank is a beneficiary of deposits flowing out from Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, its parent Danske said yesterday.

“In the current circumstances, we have been seeing an increase in our deposits,” a spokesman for National Irish Bank said. He declined to give a figure.

“Whilst the uncertainty of depositors in the Irish banks is understandable, there are deposit guarantees in place and it is important that people do not get carried away.” Rabobank’s Irish online banking unit has had “a considerable increase in the number of calls and new account applications over recent months,” according to a spokeswoman for the bank.

“Much of this is due to our AAA rating, as part of the Rabobank Group.” Ulster Bank, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, isn’t experiencing “any unusual activity” and “deposits are stable”, a spokeswoman for the unit said.

“The local Irish banking sector has some serious issues the Government is working on to solve,” said Thomas Borgen, head of Danske Bank’s international operations in Copenhagen, in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday.

“We have no view on the possibility of a run on Irish banks.”

Danske chief executive Peter Straarup said at the end of September that Danske’s Irish loan losses had probably peaked.

“As National Irish Bank is a branch of Danske Bank, being one of the stronger banks in Europe, we do not expect any negative outflow on deposits, but rather the opposite,” Mr Borgen said.

The inflows contrast with the outflows suffered by domestic lenders. AIB said last week that deposits fell 17 per cent this year.

Corporate deposits at Bank of Ireland and AIB have fallen by a combined €22 billion since the end of June, according to estimates from Emer Lang, an analyst at Davy. – (Bloomberg)