AIB Group raised its 2026 guidance for net interest income, customer loans and deposits, and now expects net interest income above €3.85bn, up from above €3.8bn. The forecast assumes an ECB deposit rate of 2.50% and a BOE rate of 4.00% at December 2026.
Net interest income for the nine months to September was €2.87bn, 2% higher than a year earlier, mainly on higher average volumes, the bank said. New lending rose 17% to €12.3bn, of which 43% was green lending, and gross loans grew by €4.0bn since December 2025 to €76.3bn.
LENDING LIFTS THE OUTLOOK
For 2026, AIB now expects customer loans to grow by 5-6%, against about 5% previously, and customer deposits by 3-4%, against about 3%. Gross loans stood at €72.3bn at the end of 2025, and deposits have since risen 2.7% to €120.4bn from €117.2bn.
Capital Markets new lending increased by 16% to €3.8bn, while Climate & Infrastructure Capital lent €2.0bn, €0.9bn more than a year earlier. New mortgage lending in Ireland rose 4% to €3.2bn, a market share of 28.4%.
CAPITAL AND DISTRIBUTIONS
The common equity tier 1 ratio fell to 15.7% at September from 16.1% in June, mainly because balance sheet growth lifted risk-weighted assets. That figure excludes nine-month profit, which generated about 260 basis points of CET1 and awaits a payout decision at year end.
After the ECB's 2026 supervisory review, AIB's Pillar 2 requirement falls by 20 basis points to 2.20% from 1 January 2027. In October the bank completed its third SRT, on about €2.5bn of project finance assets, with a positive initial CET1 impact of about 30 basis points.
The €1bn buyback announced in March had reached €740m by September and about €849m by 3 November 2026. AIB said its search for a chief financial officer is well advanced.
THE TGB VIEW
AIB ranks 49th in TGB's Europe table, one place behind Bank of Ireland, but it earned a 14.6% return on equity in 2025 against 9.3% at Bank of Ireland, with equity at 9.9% of assets against 7.8%. For 2026, AIB guides for a return on tangible equity above 20%. The next dated test is March 2027, when AIB reports 2026 results and sets out its strategy to 2030.
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