THE SOON-TO-BE nationalised bank Permanent TSB made commission payments totalling €300,000 to about 30 branch managers, according to the bank.

The commission payments, averaging about €10,000 each, were made to 30 managers across the bank’s 92-branch network last month, staff were told yesterday.

A spokesman for the bank said the payments were not bonuses but commission payments made as part of the “contractual entitlements of the managers”. He said they were “linked to the achievement of agreed goals in relation to business objectives”.

These included performance targets around the level of new deposits secured and sales of Irish Life investment and pensions products sold through branches.

Details of the payments were outlined to staff during a conference call by Permanent TSB chief executive Dave Guinane in which he gave an update on the restructuring of the company.

Irish Life Permanent must raise €4 billion to boost the company’s capital following the Central Bank’s stress tests last month. The company is to be broken up with Irish Life and Irish Life Investment Managers being sold off in a stock market flotation, expected in the second quarter of this year, to help raise some of this capital.