Ulster Bank in £59m profit as it rules out more branch closures

Bank boss Richard Donnan has said the bank has no more plans to shut branches after a closure announcement last year.

He spoke as the lender announced pre-tax profits of £59m on £184m turnover for 2017 — up from £58m in profits the year before but with impairment writebacks down from £27m to £6m.

Mr Donnan said the last of 20 closures announced last year would take place in May.

“We announced 20 branch closures during 2017 which bring our branch numbers down to 44.

“The final set of those will close in May and we’ve no further plans to make more changes in 2018, but we keep it under review,” he explained. There had been a 15% jump in new lendtivity

Performance: Richard Donnan

ing to its corporate clients during the year, along with a 29% increase in small business drawdowns.

Mr Donnan said the decrease in impairment writebacks — amounts set aside to cover bad loans which can be released after loans perform better than expected — meant an overall healthier trading performance.

“The increased level of customer activity and business acULSTER is what’s driving the fundamental uplift in core trading performance,” he continued.

Business lending had improved across a wide base. “It has increased in the hospitality and hotels sector where we have supported expansion in venues including Ten Square Hotel and the new Titanic Hotel, and it’s up a fair bit in healthcare, including care homes and pharmacies.”

But he said Brexit was a concern for clients: “The Brexit piece does create uncertainty in their planning but you are seeing some differences in responses, depending on the business life cycle or where they are in their own strategic cycles, but some have put some things on pause.”

He said the results were evidence “we have been changing and improving our organisation to become a simpler, safer and more customer-focused bank”.