Results 6,581-6,600 of 16,492 for speaker:Ciarán Lynch

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Okay, so we're now proposing that we go back into public session. Is that agreed? Agreed. So the committee of the bank inquiry is now back into public session for session 2 of today's hearings with Mr. Cormac McCarthy, former group chief executive and director of Ulster Bank. The Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis is now resuming in public session and can I remind members and...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Thank you again, Mr. McCarthy, for being with us this afternoon, and if I could invite you to make your opening statement please.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy, for your opening statement. And if I can now invite Senator Sean Barrett to open the lead questioning. Senator, you have 25 minutes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: We can come up with the supplementary later on.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: If I can just deal with two matters here before we bring in Senator O'Keeffe, Mr. McCarthy. One is just to clarify something you were saying about the round table meetings that was facilitated by the regulator from 2004 onwards. Were you saying that Ulster Bank were not part of their process, or you were not part of that process?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Okay. And I've just one other matter if I could deal with this as well, it's just, it's in regard to the property related lending strategies of the bank, and bring your attention to core document UBI - B2, page 13. And as you can this, this is-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: It's an Ulster Bank presentation.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: And it's, it ... a presentation of what I can gather, is a strategy document, Our Goals and Customer Strategies. These are where Ulster Bank sees itself going into the future. They ... it would appear, as outlined in this - I think this was presented to the board on 27 April 2007, and the question I'll be putting to you it was to become ... the target for Ulster Bank was to become the No. 1...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Is there an implied statement, or not, in the strategy document that this is grow the bank as fast as you can?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Now, in your own testimony earlier you said up to 2004 onwards, and mortgages issued after that were going to be, most likely, in negative equity. Now I'm assuming what you're talking about is first time buyers coming in, not people who are taking equity from previous properties, in the main?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: And was this targeted towards the first-time buyers market?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Okay. Now we do know that Ulster Bank were giving 100% mortgages loan-to-value ratios of 100%. You had the tracker mortgage, as well, which was a part of your product mix, and your mortgage schedule, the traditional mortgage schedule would have been in and around 20 years. What was your mortgage schedule around this time? What would it have gone out to?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Up to 40 years? Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: But the traditional prudential practice for banks that had been in existence for decades, if not centuries, was in around 20 years. Would I be right in saying that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: And we had lending ratios back in the day as well, where it would have been maybe two and a half to three times the principal earner's and one time the secondary earner of the household. Did that rate increase or did it multiply by any factor in Ulster Bank during that period?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: To what amount?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (6 May 2015)

Ciarán Lynch: But at the time the affordability rate of entry into the market for first-time buyers required Government intervention through the affordable housing programmes, and in parts of the country we were seeing subsidised entry at in and around €250,000 in urban areas, probably more in Dublin. So, at this time we had a mixture of 100% LTVs, tracker rates, mortgage schedules going from 20...