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Financial Sector

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In this chapter, statistics on the Financial sector are presented. The statistics were not collected via the structural business surveys mentioned throughout this publication, but were collected and analysed by the CSO Balance of Payments Division who engage directly with the Financial sector and its regulators on the provision of these statistics. 

The Financial and Insurances Activities sector, NACE K, has traditionally used different terms to describe variables like production value, gross value added and operating surplus. As part of a broad legislative proposal, agreed EU definitions for the Financial and Insurance sectors are currently being developed and should be in use in the coming years. The objective behind producing these Financial sector statistics is to complete the coverage of the business economy in Ireland and to allow meaningful comparisions with other business sectors such as Industry and Services. 

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The Financial sector is described by NACE Section K. It includes:

K64 – Financial Service Activities except Insurance and Pension Funding.

K65 – Insurance, Reinsurance and Pension Funding.

K66 – Activities Auxiliary to Financial Services and Insurance Activities.

K64 is dominated by credit institutions which in Ireland are banks and credit unions. However, it also includes activities of holding companies, investment funds and other financial services activities. 

K65 includes life insurance companies, non-life insurance companies and reinsurance companies as well as pension funds.

K66 is the most diverse category and includes all financial auxiliaries including brokerage firms, insurance agents and fund management activities. 

The business operations data presented for the Financial sector in this report covers banks, life insurance, non-life insurance and reinsurance. The detailed calculations of the main indicators for these enterprises are presented here. The calculations are based on an accounting framework where the income and expenses for the reference year 2014 are analysed in detail. See Tables 8.1 and 8.2.

Interest payable
linked to securities
Interest payable
linked to loans and deposits
Interest receivable
from securities
Interest receivable
from loans and deposits
2012-3.193-9.825.96812.176
2013-2.484-6.6674.0729.067
2014-2.053-4.3383.3167.738
  • Interest received and interest paid decreased over the period 2012 to 2014 when the ECB reduced their rates.
  • The net interest income from securities decreased over the period while the net interest received from loans and deposits increased.
  • Both Production Value and Personnel costs decreased from 2012 to 2013, followed by increases in 2014.
  • Gross Operating Surplus remained stable over the three years 2012 to 2014. 
Profit linked to loans and depositsProfit linked to securitiesOther IncomeValue of Production
20122.3562.7753.258.381
20132.41.5883.5137.501
20143.41.2633.6878.35
Gross premiums earnedGross claims incurred
201241.69511157637.716398853
201344.8355754123634.82626283908
201447.0783680763734.83621732805
  • Gross Premiums earned increased almost 12.9% between 2012 and 2014, while Gross Claims incurred fell 7.6% in the same period.
  • Fees Receivable increased by 5.8% in 2013 and by 5.1% in 2014.
  • Investment Income on Insurance Reserves (Technical a/c) decreased 6.9% between 2012 and 2014.
  • Production for all Insurance companies amounted to €13.4bn in 2014, an increase of €1.4bn or 11.5% on the previous year.
  • Gross Operating Surplus (or profit) for Insurance companies was over €3.1bn in 2014, an increase of €1.3bn or almost 75% on 2013 levels.
8.1 Production account and generation of income for all banks, 2012 - 2014

8.2 Production account and generation of income for all insurance companies, 2012 - 2014

Table 8.3 Summary of main indicators for banks and insurance, 2014
   €m
 BanksInsuranceTotal
Turnover8,35047,07855,428
Production value8,35013,41921,769
Gross value added5,1653,9209,085
of which   
  Gross operating surplus2,9553,1436,098
  Personnel costs2,2097772,986
Source: CSO/Central Bank survey of credit institutions and CSO Balance of Payments surveys of insurance corporations

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