By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Bank of Ireland <BKIR.I> more than doubled its profit in the first half of 2015 as it increased new lending and reduced loan impairment charges, generating more capital at a significant pace.
The bank, which was the only domestic lender to avoid falling under state control after the country's 2008 financial crisis, reported on Friday an underlying pretax profit of 743 million euros (522 million pounds) in the first six months of the year, up from 327 million euros in the same period of 2014.
"We're seeing continued good momentum and the pipeline of loan applications right across our Irish and UK businesses are good," Chief Executive Richie Boucher told Reuters.
The country's largest lender by assets, which returned to profit for the first time since the financial crisis last year as the country's economy grew faster than any other in the euro zone, cut its impairments by 63 percent to 166 million euros
Under so-called fully loaded Basel III banking industry rules and excluding 1.3 billion euros of preference shares its Core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio rose to 11.1 percent of assets from 9.1 percent at the end of March.
Capital ratios had been dented in the first quarter after the bank's pension deficit increased. Pressure has since eased but the bank said its stellar capital generation mainly reflected the doubling of profits.
Net interest margin rose to 2.21 percent from 2.15 percent in the second half of last year, with modest growth expected for the rest of the year.
The bank said loan volumes stabilised at 85 billion euros and Boucher told Reuters he expected new lending in the second half will beat the 6.5 billion euros advanced to customers in the first six months.
(Editing by Greg Mahlich)