Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. John McDonnell:

Yes, because the NAMA haircut was a close to a current fair value for the loan and given the very depressed state of property prices, fair values were always going to be lower than in an incurred loss value. And, as I said earlier on, Chairman, the bank had no ability to fair-value its loans in its financial statements. It was required to account for them at amortised cost, which is basically what you lent less your incurred loss impairment. The two numbers are calculated differently and because we were at, as we now know, the bottom of the cycle, fair value was always going to be below the amortised cost amounts, so it was always going to be different. And, as I said, Bank of Ireland were critically aware of that and that's why they disclosed in the financial statements 31 December 2009 that they were going to make substantial losses on the disposal of loans to NAMA and they also would have, I believe, explained why those losses could not be recorded in accounting standards until the loans actually transferred to NAMA.

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