Have the banks really turned a corner?

The extremely hard work of cleaning the banks up is over. Now the hard work of keeping them profitable begins in earnest, writes Ian Guider.

There's no doubt that the banks are beneficiaries of the buoyancy in the property market. And as long as it continues, they can write back provisions already made against expected losses on home loans.

Having taken over as AIB chief executive in the dark winter of 2011, David Duffy was forced to get to grips with the fact that one of his first public acts would be to announce one of the biggest losses in the bank’s history. And the losses would continue for a couple more years.

The clean-up job at AIB was substantial. This was a bank that required a near-€21 billion lifeline from the ...