The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) expects to reduce its direct operating costs by €36 million in 2017 as it continues to wind down its activities. The agency has budgeted €72 million for these costs for next year compared with €108 million for 2016, a reduction of 33 per cent, the Irish Times reported. It also expects the number of debtor connections to have reduced to 150 or fewer by the end of this year from about 800 in 2010 when loans began transferring to it from domestic banks.

Permanent TSB has completed the last stage of its €8.4 billion deleveraging plan with the sale of the balance of its UK mortgage book to US-based Cerberus Capital Management, the Irish Times reported. The deal will involve a 15 per cent haircut on the £2.29 billion face value of the Capital Home Loans portfolio, which comprises mostly buy-to-let loans. PTSB chief executive Jeremy Masding described the transaction as a “milestone” deal, as it completes the final element of the restructuring plan agreed with the European Commission as part of its State aid.

The State’s banks are putting plans in place for the sale of billions of euro of bonds where investors can suffer losses during a crisis, as European authorities set targets for euro area lenders in the coming weeks, the Irish Times reported. AIB subsidiary EBS has acknowledged in a bond prospectus that it and the parent group may have to sell a “significant amount” of such notes, to be calculated as a percentage of banks’ total liabilities, under the incoming rules. The bank made the comments under a list of risks facing the group in the document.

The Supreme Court will give judgment at a later date on the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland’s (MIBI) appeal against decisions it is potentially liable for claims brought against collapsed insurer Setanta, the Irish Times reported. The appeal concluded on Tuesday before a seven-judge court presided over by the Chief Justice, Ms Justice Susan Denham, who said the court was reserving judgment. The court did not specify a date for judgment but it is expected to take some weeks.

A seven-judge Supreme Court is hearing the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland’s appeal against decisions that it is potentially liable for claims brought against collapsed insurer Setanta, the Irish Times reported. Because all motor insurers operating in Ireland must be members of the MIBI, the decisions by the High Court and Court of Appeal effectively mean that all insurers entering the Irish market must undertake an “enormous potential liability”, Paul Gallagher SC, for the MIBI, said.

Ireland’s national debt stood at €200.1 billion at the end of June, equating to 77.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the Irish Times reported. New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show this represented a €6.5 billion drop on the previous quarter, when debt represented more than 80 per cent of GDP. At the height of the financial crisis, Ireland’s debt was more than 120 per cent of GDP. Last year it fell from 105 per cent to 78 per cent as a result of a 26 per cent leap in GDP linked to the relocation of multinational assets here.

Administrators have been appointed to one of Northern Ireland’s best known women’s fashion retailers, which traded as Exhibit and employed about 100 people, the Irish Times reported. Cucco Retail Limited, which operated Exhibit, had 15 branches across the North and also two in the Republic – in Monaghan and Sligo towns. Joint administrators James Neill and Rachel Foster of HNH Group said a “general downturn in trading conditions, coupled with a significant change in consumer spending patterns over recent times” had significantly impact on Exhibit’s trade.

The number of people applying for debt relief during the third quarter of the year has more than doubled on last year, according to figures from the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI), the Irish Times reported. According to the ISI, there were 899 new applications in the third quarter of the year, more than twice the number received in 2015, and up by 22 per cent on the second quarter. More than three-quarters (78 per cent) of applications are for Personal Insolvency Arrangements (PIAs). These allow a person to return to solvency while staying in their home.

KBC Bank Ireland has been fined €1.4 million by the Central Bank for breaches of the Code of Practice on Lending to Related Parties, which may include directors, senior managers, significant shareholders of the bank and spouses or domestic partners, the Irish Times reported.

The Aughinish Alumina plant in Co Limerick staged a remarkable turnaround last year, recording a $14.4 million pretax profit after reporting a $12.1 million loss in 2014, the Irish Times reported. The main activity of the Shannon estuary-based refinery is the production and sale of alumina, which is extracted at the plant from bauxite and then exported outside the EU for further processing to aluminium metal.