Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Con Horan:

Well, it sent a signal to them in terms of ... they needed to keep additional capital aside, so that they wouldn't have had as much capital available for additional lending. So the level of regulatory capital they had to keep was increased which kind of reduced the buffer that they had for other activities. And there were other things that could be done at that stage including sending in, you know, consultants to carry out work, etc., which was often very expensive and not something that the banks enjoyed. I think in another case we reduced the level of joint venture activity they could get involved in. So there were some measures within the structure that could be used but, as I say, that was in advance of the administrative sanctions regime which didn't come in ... I just make the point again ... I think until July 2005 and the guidelines were only issued in October 2005. So that explains a lot of that earlier period, I think.

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