Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Eugene Sheehy:
Well, these relationships ... in AIB, almost all of our relationships were historically based, you know - we didn't go out looking for new relationships. So these were customers that had been with the bank for a long time. So those relationships were managed and evolved over time. Customers got loans, they paid them back, more loans, they paid them back. So there was a confidence level there. There was a constant change in personnel at the bank. We changed the way these relationships were managed by centralising the management of these sector teams, moving it away from the front line. There is always ... the nearer the banker is to the customer, the greater the risk. That's just a golden rule in banking, okay. So you try to set up structures, processes, reviews and procedures that interject between that risk.