Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Cormac McCarthy:

We wrote them down. So we took significant provisions in 2009 and 2010 in particular, when the NAMA haircuts as they're called came in.

So that was the only time in a completely illiquid market that we had any reference point. Subsequent to that, the market deteriorated further so after NAMA did its marks, the market went deeper and Ulster Bank had to mark further to, again, an illiquid and lower point in the cycle. In addition to that, RBS set up its own resolution vehicle and a number of Ulster Bank assets were transferred to that vehicle and so, to the question I was asked earlier about capital, RBS itself made a number of decisions around portfolio management that affected the quantum of capital that was injected into Ulster Bank, so therefore you have a situation where you have no comparability with what was going on between NAMA and the Irish banks and the Irish Government and capital and what was happening in Ulster Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, in terms of capital and provisioning. And it will only be clear in time what the real comparability is, if at all Deputy.

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