MT Bank, in which AIB has a 24 per cent stake, said profit rose 40 per cent in the third quarter, aided by acquisitions and wider margins. Net income increased to $127.7 million, or 97 cents a share, from $91.2 million, or 82 cents, in the same period a year earlier, the New York-based lender said.

MT, which accepted $600 million from the US treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, has remained profitable even as US bank failures reached 99 this year, the most since the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s. – (Bloomberg)