Loan approval rates for small and medium sized firms are continuing to improve although access to credit remains a big issue for SMEs, a new survey reveals. The quarterly bank watch study compiled by Isme shows 35 per cent of small businesses who applied for funding were refused credit, down from 43 per cent at the end of February. Overall 41 per cent of fims surveyed said they required additional or new bank facilities in the last three months, as against 42 per cent in the preceding quarter.

The Central Bank’s new head of credit institutions supervision Ed Sibley said banks face “high levels of scrutiny and challenge” as they seek to free up money previously set aside for bad loans, the Irish Times reported. In his first speech his appointment to the role in April, Mr Sibley said that following the crisis “the patient is still weak and vulnerable” and banks still have much to do to address soured loans and risks posed by the “astonishing pace” of technological change.

Receivers appointed over the assets of family members of businessman Seán Quinn say their living expenses should first be paid out of their personal accounts before any expenses are paid out of accounts frozen four years ago, the Irish Times reported. Lawyers for the Quinns said the receivers’ Commercial Court application was a “punitive” attempt to stop them getting on with their lives when they had been waiting years for legal proceedings to be heard.

A group of senior staff at Petroceltic International are expected to voice concerns about the alleged writing down of their employment rights in opposing a survival scheme for the company due to be put before the High Court next week for approval, the Irish Times reported. About 30 senior staff, including senior executives and management, have voted against the proposed scheme at creditors’ meetings. Under the proposals prepared by examiner Michael McAteer, the staff are due to receive just 5 per cent of monies owed to them under “change of control” clauses in their contracts.

The trial of four former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent executives – Willie McAteer, John Bowe, Denis Casey and Peter Fitzpatrick – on charges connected with a €7.2 billion circular deposit between the two financial institutions in 2008 is just one of a number of criminal cases involving former Anglo directors, the Irish Times reported. The trial of Mr McAteer and Pat Whelan, another former Anglo Irish Bank executive, over an alleged fraudulent loan of over €8 million is slated to start in January 2017.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has taken control of a subsidiary of building group BAM on foot of a debt dating back to a 2007 land deal, the Irish Times reported. Nama recently appointed Jim Hamilton and David O’Connor of accountants BDO as receivers to JPDC, a subsidiary of BAM, the Dutch-owned group that is one of the biggest players in Irish construction. JPDC is a property holding company that sold a site in Carrigtowhill, Co Cork in 2007 to construction company John F Supple, whose debts Nama took over in 2010 and which was finally wound up two years later.

Irish consumers continue to save and shirk new loans in favour of paying down existing debt, leading to a significant change in the Irish banking market, the Irish Times reported. Figures from the Central Bank show that household lending slumped by 3.5 per cent in April, compared with the same period in 2015, as mortgage loans fell by € 176 million during the month, or by 2.3 per cent in the year. Households repaid € 1.8 billion more than was advanced in new loans.

Members of Sean Quinn’s family are opposing an application for court orders to stop them receiving any further living expenses out of accounts controlled by receivers appointed over assets linked to Quinn companies, the Irish Times reported. It is alleged the living expense payments from the relevant accounts are no longer necessary because the financial circumstances of a number of family members have changed “significantly” since the living expense orders were made in 2012.

Worldview Capital, the Swiss-Cayman Islands hedge fund that is buying Petroceltic International out of examinership, is gaining full control of the business for a knockdown cash payment of $7.8 million, the Irish Times reported. Creditors of Petroceltic will meet next Monday to vote on a scheme of arrangement assembled by the examiner, Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton. The scheme is certain to pass as Worldview is also the biggest creditor.

Debenhams, the British retail chain with 11 outlets in Ireland employing 2,200 staff, has become embroiled in a row with the Roche family that once owned Roches Stores, the Irish Times reported. Debenhams bought Roches Stores from the Roche family for €29 million in 2006 and rebranded it, although the family held on to the properties. Details of the row have emerged in documents given to the High Court as part of Debenhams’ Irish division’s application for examinership, a form of court protection while it restructures its finances.