Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Michael Torpey:

Perhaps I can start with an initial comment. I am a little bit light on this one because it was subsequent to my departure from Ulster Bank but, in general terms, the parameters of the stress tests that would have applied during my time with the bank were perimeters that were determined or dictated by the Financial Regulator, and as such the stress tests will have been conducted on the basis of those parameters that were indicated. I think it is fair to say that stress tests failed to capture the outcomes that were to transpire over time, perhaps if for no other reason, that the scale of events was entirely unprecedented and off the scale of any past experience or expectation that might have been captured in an analysis conducted at that time, of even severe but implausible future events. So that is a general comment on the approach to stress tests. The financials that drove the stress test outcomes subsequent to my departure, it is not something I am up to speed on.

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