The fledgling Maritime & Merchant (M&M) Bank is ­confident it will be profitable before the end of the year. 

“We will likely know at the end of the summer,” said founder and chief ­executive Halvor Sveen.

The bank, which opened in December, had a pre-tax loss of $1.2m in the first quarter but Sveen is not worried. “We build stone by stone,” he said.