Permanent TSB pre-tax losses narrow to €668m

Permanent TSB has reported a pre-tax loss of €668 million for 2013, down from a loss of €919 million in 2012.

The lender said its operating loss was unchanged year on year at €977 million, but that its impairment charges rose from €883 million in 2012 to €927 million last year.

The bank said 58,000 new current account customers signed up between last April mid-March of this year.

Permanent TSB's chief executive Jeremy Masding said on Wednesday that the group has a viable future and that despite its loss-making tracker mortgages it can still make the bank profitable.

The mortgages, which track the European Central Bank’s low interest rate, make up two-thirds of the state-owned mortgage lender’s loan book and are currently causing a drag on the its profitability.

“We have always operated on the basis that we are the people to manage the trackers. We’ll quantify the cost, we’ll live with it, and we will make the bank profitable. This group has a viable future,” Jeremy Masding told a news conference after reporting a pre-exceptionals full-year loss of €977 million.

The group recorded impairment charges of €927 million in 2013, compared to a figure of €883 million for 2012.

Additional reporting: Reuters