Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Credit Union Sector: Discussion (Resumed)

2:30 pm

Ms Anne Marie McKiernan:

I can answer that. I refer to what Deputy Barry mentioned earlier about credit unions getting back to their core business of personal finance short-term lending. That remains the vast majority of the lending activity that is undertaken in credit unions. Apart from a few exceptions, that is what they do significantly. It is not a complex business model that would require significant types of risk weighting for the reserves to accommodate different types of practices. However, if the business model of credit unions changes dramatically in the future as a result of initiatives that they drive forward, we will review whether risk weighting becomes appropriate but at present it is a fairly unsophisticated non-complex business model and we believe that the straightforward non-risk-weighted approach is most appropriate, particularly when one takes into account the significant number of smaller entities.