Ireland

The Insolvency Service of Ireland has said its latest report shows a continuing take up of the newly introduced alternative solutions to bankruptcy, RTÉ reported. In a report detailing its work for the third quarter of the year, the ISI said that almost 500 new applications were made to its service in the three months from June to September. The total debt involved in the new cases created in the third quarter was about €186m and the total debt involved in bankruptcy adjudications for the same period was roughly €129m.

AIB will be in a position to repay a “very sizeable chunk” of capital to the State in the “not too distant future”, its chief executive Bernard Byrne told the annual dinner of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce last night, the Irish Times reported. “The Minister for Finance [Michael Noonan] will determine when and how the bank will return more capital to the State through an initial public offering but you can be assured that we will be ready, when he makes that decision,” Mr Byrne said, citing the bank’s improved financial performance.

Lending by Ireland’s 354 credit unions slumped to a 15-year low of €3.5 billion in the 12 months to June 2015, due to a combination of reduced demand and lending restrictions imposed by the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. However, with some €5.5 billion in available funds ready to lend to members, the movement is hopeful that an upturn is on the way. According to the Irish League of Credit Unions’ annual review, loans fell by €166 million, or 4 per cent in the year to June 2015, down to €3.5 billion. The last time credit union loans were at such a level was in 2000.

US company Cerberus has appointed receivers to Ballybay Estates, one of the companies whose debts it bought through the National Asset Management Agency’s Project Eagle sale, to recover a €7 million loan, the Irish Times reported. New York-based Cerberus Capital Management’s €1.6 billion purchase of the Project Eagle loans is caught in a row over claims that a number of Belfast political and business figures were to receive payment as a result of the deal. The company itself denies any wrongdoing.

Irish consumers still feel “somewhat remote” from reports of a strong domestic recovery, according to the latest KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI consumer sentiment survey, the Irish Times reported. The survey’s headline index fell marginally to 100.6 in September from 101.1 the previous month. This probably reflects the difficulty the average consumer has in making sense of seemingly contradictory recent signals both in relation to economic prospects generally and their own financial circumstances, the report’s authors said.

Permanent TSB has established a Mortgage Product Review Group to scrutinise its suite of home loans and to establish whether there are any cases where the contractual terms and conditions attached to mortgage accounts were not being fully honoured by the bank, the Irish Times reported. Ger Mitchell, a member of PTSB’s executive committee, is to lead the review supported by senior manager Gillian O’Shea along with a bank team and external independent expertise in the areas of conduct risk and product design.

Banks, insurance companies and investment funds in Ireland will have to pay an extra €15 million this year to help cover the running costs of their regulator, the Central Bank of Ireland. This represents a 29 per cent rise in the industry’s contribution to the Central Bank’s running costs, which will increase to €66 million from €51.1 million in 2014. This raises the prospect of banks and insurance companies passing on the cost to their customers by way of higher fees or premiums.

The additional state borrowing undertaken as part of the bank bailout has already cost the state almost €9 billion to service, according to the report of the Comptroller & Auditor General, the Irish Times reported. This cost largely offsets all the income which the state received from the banks in return for giving them the guarantee. The C&AG calculates that the total cost of the bailout has been €60 billion so far for the State.

Pretax losses at Irish-based oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources widened in the six months ending June 30th as the group said it was in talks with its lender to extend its debt facility. Providence reported a first-half pretax loss of €8.42 million as against €3.37 million for the same period a year earlier with a loss per share of 7.94 cents versus 5.22 cents in the first six months of 2014. The Tony O’Reilly-headed group said that as with other explorers, Providence has been hit by the fall in oil prices but said it remained focused on its core Irish-centric strategy.

Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly will witness the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts quiz Nama on the controversial €1.6 billion Project Eagle loan sale later this week, the Irish Times reported. The Dáil committee is due to question the agency on Thursday about the sale of debts due to it from mainly Northern-based borrowers to US investment fund Cerberus in early 2014. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s finance and personnel committee, which is carrying out its own investigation, are due to attend Thursday’s Leinster House hearings.