Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Frank Daly:

I don't think Deputy that we have particular, specific figures but I mean it would have been common across all of the banks and it would have been pretty commonplace in each of the banks that there were personal guarantees. I suppose the point we were making in both our opening statements was that once you begin to rely on personal guarantees then by definition you are relying on the personal wealth of the debtor. If the process by which that personal wealth is assessed is in any way doubtful - in other words if it is done on the basis of statements of affairs where the valuation of assets is essentially done by the debtor and maybe not rigorously examined or overseen by the banks - then you are getting into a cross-collateralisation right across the loan book and you are getting into it on the basis again of relationship banking, with not a huge amount of oversight. There is nothing wrong with statements of affairs, but in very many cases they weren't audited, in very many cases some of the asset valuation was actually done by the person presenting the statement of affairs to the bank and in very many cases you would have to say the bank wasn't looking into those.