NIBC Bank returned to the black in the third quarter, but net profits after the first nine months of the year were two-thirds down from last year's level after US sub-prime-related trading losses all but wiped out profits in the first half of the year.

NIBC was sold in the wake of the trading losses to Kaupthing, in a move that made its previous owners, a consortium led by JC Flowers, the second biggest shareholders in the Icelandic financial group.