Back to Top

 Skip navigation

Financial Sector

Open in Excel:

Statistics on the Financial sector are presented in this chapter. 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 comparisons with other business sectors such as Industry and Services. 

Open in Excel:

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, obtaining and redistributing funds other than for the purpose of insurance, pension funding or compulsory social security among other financial services activities.

K65 includes life insurance companies, non-life insurance companies and reinsurance companies as well as pension funds. This group includes underwriting annuities, insurance policies and investing premiums to increase the portfolio of financial assets.

K66 is the most diverse category and includes all financial auxiliaries including brokerage firms, insurance agents and fund management activities. These services are closely related to financial service activities but are not themselves providing financial services. 

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 2015 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
2013-2.5-6.74.19.1
2014-2.1-4.33.37.7
2015-1.7-3.22.57.4
  • Interest received and interest paid continued to decrease over the period 2013 to 2015 following the ECB rate reductions. On average Interest receivable decreased 13% (-16% from 2013-14 and -10% from 2014-15) and Interest payable and similar charges decreased on average around 27% (-30% from 2013-14 and -24% from 2014-15)
  • The net interest income from securities decreased over the period while the net interest received from loans and deposits increased
  • Interest receivable from loans and deposits decreased by 15% between 2013 and 2014 and a further 5% between 2014 and 2015
  • Both Production Value and Personnel costs increased from 2013 to 2015
  • Gross Operating Surplus increased in 2015, having remained stable over the previous three years 
Profit linked to loans and depositsProfit linked to securitiesOther IncomeValue of Production
20132.41.63.57.5
20143.41.33.78.4
20154.20.93.88.8
Gross premiums earnedGross claims incurred
201344.834.8
201447.134.8
201554.538.4
  • Gross Premiums earned increased 21.6% between 2013 and 2015, while Gross Claims incurred were up 10.2% in the same period
  • Fees Receivable increased by 5.1% in 2014 and by 16.3% in 2015
  • Investment Income on Insurance Reserves (Technical a/c) decreased 14.3% between 2013 and 2015
  • Production for all Insurance companies amounted to €14.6bn in 2015, an increase of €1.1bn or 8.5% on the previous year
  • Gross Operating Surplus (or profit) for Insurance companies was nearly €2.5bn in 2015, a decrease of €0.6bn or more than 21% on 2014 levels
8.1 Production account and generation of income for all banks, 2013 - 2015

8.2 Production account and generation of income for all insurance companies, 2013 - 2015

Table 8.3 Summary of main indicators for banks and insurance, 2015

Go to next chapter >>> International Comparisons