IRISH NATIONWIDE lost €899 million in customer deposits in the six months to the end of June 2009, according to figures from the Department of Finance.

Customer deposits fell from €6.785 billion at the end of last year to €5.886 billion on June 30th, 2009. Some €517 million of the decline related to deposits lost in Ireland with €413 million relating to lost deposits in the “rest of the world”, primarily in its UK unit. The number of customer deposits fell from 206,000 last December to 185,000 at the end of June, with deposits in Ireland falling from 197,000 to 185,000.

Deposits were €1.7 billion lower on June 30th compared to a year earlier, according to the figures released by the department with the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) figures last week.

The building society is transferring the largest number of loans as a percentage of its overall loan book to Nama. Loans with a face value of €8 billion will be acquired by Nama from the building society, which has a loan book of €10.5 billion. This represents 76 per cent of overall loans.

The level of customer deposits last June gives Irish Nationwide a loans-to-deposits ratio – a measure of a lender’s reliance on external funding – of 178 per cent, meaning that, for every €1 on deposit, it has €1.78 on loan. This ratio will fall to 42 per cent following Nama.

The figures also showed a sharp contraction in new lending. Irish Nationwide approved just nine mortgages worth €340,000 at the end of June, compared with 21 worth €1.43 million last September. Some 59 mortgages worth €2.13 million were drawn down on September 30th, 2008. This figure fell to 26 mortgages worth €810,000 on June 30th, 2009.

First-time buyers accounted for three mortgages worth €90,000 drawn down at the end of September 2008. No mortgages for first-time buyers were approved or drawn down at the end of June last.