Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Fergus Murphy:
I would say, Deputy, to try and be helpful there, that one, I would imagine it wasn't the policy of the society for generations and decades before that, and that they would have had a reputation for being a conservative and prudential and good lender. I would imagine, and I don't have the detail here, that the wording here, "The Society's Credit Policy does not require bank statements", it may be ... and please do bear with me if I'm incorrect in this ... that the Regulator has evidenced where bank statements weren't seen or required or were on file and that the credit policy isn't explicit enough about calling out the requirement for bank statements. If I was betting on this, I would imagine that is the nature of this point 4, on page 54, rather than we ... we, as an organisation, EBS, at the time, as an organisation, has a blanket, you know, disinterest in receiving bank statements from applicants. However ... so, you know, devil in the detail, however, I think substantively a letter like this with so much in it, in terms of things that need improvement or could be done better, does reflect on, I think, probably your concerns, Deputy, but also the comments I'm making in terms of the system wasn't able to keep up with the origination that was taking place on the back of a property economy.
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