April 23, 2024

Pretax profits rose by 158% last year to €1.73 billion, helped in part by rising interest rates

Bank of America’s EU banking hub in Dublin grew its local workforce by a fifth to 1,200 last year, mainly as it expanded its international technology and operations centre.

The jobs increase also came as the Irish-based Bank of America Europe unit saw its pretax profit jump 158 per cent last year to $1.84 billion (€1.73 billion), driven by rising interest rates and a release of some reserves it had previously put away to cover loan losses.

The company freed up $80 million (€75 million) of such reserves, reversing a large portion of the $106 million (€99.5 million) of provisions it had set aside in 2022 as the European economy weakened amid rising inflation and the Ukraine war.

Bank of America chose Dublin as its EU headquarters in 2017. The unit, which had an average of 2,548 employees across the continent last year, has two main divisions: global banking and markets, and a support services division. The US banking giant has had a presence in the Republic since 1968.

Net interest income at the subsidiary more than doubled to $1.09 billion (€1.02 billion).

Bank of America Europe had $17.1 billion (€16 billion) of cash with central banks at the end of last year. Still, it is understood that this is a much higher figure than for most of the year and partly reflects how corporates like to have high levels of cash on their balance sheets at the end of a year.

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