We are delighted to provide our latest European Banking Barometer report. For the first time we included a number of c-suite and board level participants from the Irish banking community representing 21 of the 250 European Wide Respondents. We are most grateful to those individuals for taking the time to contribute.
Somewhat sobering is the overall decline in optimism across respondents, Europewide from last years’ survey. Respondents in the Nordics and Netherlands were most pessimistic. The diversity of Irish respondents between domestic market banks and those from the ‘IFSC’ banking community make the Irish resources somewhat complex to interpret.
However, all of our banking clients in Ireland can relate to the themes of cost reduction and regulatory/risk management concerns highlighted, as well as the huge challenges presented by the need to enhance revenue and attain investible returns on equity.
The results validate our continuing investment in Ireland across regulation and risk, digitisation and cyber security, and we continue to help domestic market players respond to those challenges. We are also delighted to report that the Brexit debate has generated increased interest in Ireland as a near shore location as global banks continue to examine their global value chains. Investment in Ireland by multinational corporations, including banks, continues to be the single most important driver of Irish economic and banking recoveries.
We welcome your feedback and will be arranging debriefs on the survey detail with the Irish survey participants and our wider banking client community.
