Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 1 December 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Banking Sector in Ireland: Ulster Bank

9:30 am

Mr. Andrew Blair:

I will add two further points to that. The first point is that in selling to the people who acquired these loans, all of those loans are now serviced by independent parties who are governed by the Central Bank regulations just as we are governed from a conduct of business perspective by the Central Bank since 2015. The way that they are treated and the way they behave is subject to exactly the same form of regulation to which the banks are subject. The expectation is that that would be carried through in exactly the same manner that we would be expected to carry it through from a regulatory perspective. That is a very strong comfort to us in ensuring that when we pass these loans to somebody else, the requirements they are required to meet are the same as the requirements we are required to meet.

To go back to my point earlier, the loan agreement is the loan agreement as it stands. If the Senator is talking about behavioural aspects as distinct from contractual aspects-----