The latest European Bank Rankings from Merrill Lynch in which banks have been ranked according to a number of key market and performance criteria will make interesting reading for rivals AIB Bank and Bank of Ireland. Bank of Ireland outranks rival AIB in all but two of the six categories.

AIB is ranked 20th of the European banks in terms of market capitalisation with Bank of Ireland coming in at 24th on the list of 55 banks. And AIB ranks 7th in the estimated return on equity in 1998 category compared with ninth place for Bank of Ireland - these were the highest rankings scored by the Irish banks in the rankings.

But Bank of Ireland was ahead in the price-to-operating-profit category in 32nd place compared with 40th place for AIB and in the price-to-net-asset value category in 30th position compared with 48th for AIB. Bank of Ireland outranked AIB on the estimated dividend yield for 1998 in 31st place compared with 36th for AIB. And Bank of Ireland had a lower estimated price earnings ratio than AIB rankling 21st on the European list from AIB's 35th position. Among the European banks, Union Bank of Norway was a strong performer, ranking first in three categories: price-to-operating-profit; dividend-yield; and price-earnings-ratio.