Bank of Ireland expects Europe's new financial reporting standards to reduce earnings per share by an estimated 10 cents, the group said today.
The negative impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on profit before tax was expected to be about €85 million, it added in a presentation.
The guidance given today was an indicative number of the likely impact on earnings and not a forecast, the country's second-largest bank by market capitalisation stressed.
No material impact was expected on Tier 1 capital, the bank said; the guidance was in line with analyst expectations.
The EU is adopting IFRS as part of a global harmonisation of accounting standards following the 1997 Asian financial crisis and high-profile bankruptcies such as that of Enron.
Companies will have to put stock options on the balance sheet, value instruments such as derivatives at market rate and take regular impairment tests on goodwill.
At Bank of Ireland, accounts for the half-year to September 2005 will be presented under IFRS, with September 2004 comparatives restated where appropriate, it said.
Had IFRS been applied to full-year earnings to March 2005, it would cut EPS by about 12.2 cents and pretax profit by about €127 million, Bank of Ireland said.