It is an extraordinary amount of money. For most people there is something vaguely disturbing about the idea that AIB can make a profit of €1.4 billion, which equates to something close to €4 million a day.Admiration for Mr Michael Buckley and his team is tinged with a certain concern that we might be overpaying for our banking services. Such suspicions are always bubbling away in the background given the dominance of the market here by AIB and Bank of Ireland.
The Republic remains the single most important market for AIB. It accounts for almost one-third of the bank's income, but nearer half of its pre-tax profits. The strong performance of the home operation compensates to a certain extent for the less profitable ventures into capital markets, Poland and of course the United States. That said, the bank's domestic operation is no more profitable than its UK arm, which includes Northern Ireland.
What is clear from the record figures published yesterday is that AIB - and by extension the financial services industry - is still reaping the benefits of the economic boom. The resilience of consumer confidence in the face of the economic slowdown was a major contributor to the bank's performance last year.
The bank also paid some €306 million to the Exchequer in taxes. Significant though this sum may be, it is modest in terms of what AIB would pay if based elsewhere. Along with the rest of Irish industry the banks have benefited from the Government's decision to bring corporation tax down to 12.5 per cent in anticipation of the abolition of the special 10 per cent incentive rate. It has been the bank's good fortune that this change coincided with a period of record profitability driven by the Republic's exceptional economic performance.
Yesterday's results should silence the bank's grumbling about the €100 million a year levy imposed on them by the Minister for Finance last December.