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Opening Bell: Questions for John Hurley, Central bank mortgage report, forex fines

The Banking Inquiry will hear from the former-Governor of the Central Bank, John Hurley today - h...
Newstalk
Newstalk

07.30 21 May 2015


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Opening Bell: Questions for Jo...

Opening Bell: Questions for John Hurley, Central bank mortgage report, forex fines

Newstalk
Newstalk

07.30 21 May 2015


Share this article


The Banking Inquiry will hear from the former-Governor of the Central Bank, John Hurley today - he was in charge when the financial crisis began.

He will be questioned about the Bank's role and his own actions in the run up to, and during the financial crisis.

Critics who have analysed the data that was available to him have said that there were clear signs that a housing bubble was forming.

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In 2012 he looked back at the banking guarantee, and said - "At that time no pan-European response mechanism had been put on the table," he adds, it is "important to judge what happened in the context of the time. All agendas were open and the response could only be described as heroic."

The Inquiry is focussing on three main elements, namely Banking Systems and Practices, Regulatory and Supervisory practices and Crisis Management.

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The Minister for Finance is expected to publish a report later by the Central Bank, comparing variable mortgage rates available here.

Michael Noonan and Taoiseach Enda Kenny have repeatedly asked the banks to lower their variable rates, in particular to help those with difficulties making repayments.

Although the banks have had to reduce tracker mortgages rates, there has been little benefit to around 300,000 variable rate customers.

European Central Bank lending rates are currently close to zero.

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Six of the world's largest investment banks have been fined $5.7bn by US regulators for their roles in the forex rigging scandal.

Citigroup, Morgan Chase, Barclays, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland were all accused of manipulating the $5.3tn a day global currency markets to boost the banks' profits.

All but UBS pleaded guilty to the charges. Bank of America has also been fined, but it avoided a guilty plea.

"The penalty all these banks will now pay is fitting, considering the long-running and egregious nature of their anticompetitive conduct," said US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch at a news conference in Washington.

The probe will continue and cases are expected to be taken against individual banking officials.

The new fines will bring total penalties for the banks involved to more than $10bn.

Barclays will pay the largest fine – more than $2.3bn – and also have to fire 8 employees – though nobody at an executive or board level in any of the banks  has been directly affected by the process to date

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Musgraves, Ireland’s largest retail distribution business and owners of the Supervalu, Mace and Centra retail franchise brands here is to sell its loss-making UK retail franchise business, Budgens, to the wholesale food service company, Looker for £40m.

Musgrave bought Budgens, which operates the Budgens and Londis franchises in the UK, for £230m in 2002, but has suffered serious losses there in recent years due principally to strong offline and online competition and falling food spend. Pre-tax losses at Budgens amounted to £63m last year alone.

Musgrave says the deal with Bookers will involve a long term strategic partnership between the companies in areas such as buying scale, digital innovation and store design and format

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The company that owns the Applegreen forecourt service station business could announce its anticipated plans to float on the stock market as early as next month.

The business, which is currently privately-owned, was established more than 20 years ago and currently operates close to 100 service stations throughout the country including eight motorway stations. It also operates food and beverage franchises at many stations for the likes of Burger King, Costa Coffee and Subway

A stock market listing for Applegreen has been signalled for some time but the Irish Times reports this morning that the board of Petrogas could approve a June flotation next week, which could raise up to €100m in new funding for the firm.

This will be used to expand the firm’s presence in the US, where it currently operates a small number of service stations in Long Island and in the UK where it currently has more than 50 stations.

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IAG chief executive, Irish man, Willie Walsh says he and his board are in no rush for the government to make a decision on the possible sale of the State’s 25 percent stake in Aer Lingus to IAG.

Speaking at a function in Dublin yesterday, Walsh said he had a small team of people dedicated to the bid and they remain on call and we’ll see what happens.”

Some commentators believe a report by an inter-departmental review of the merits of the sale of the State’s stake in Aer LIngus, could go to Cabinet for approval as early as next Tuesday, after the referendums and by-election are out of the way this weekend.

Co-incidentally, Ryanair, which holds a near 30 percent stake in Aer Lingus, and who's decision whether or not to sell is crucial to the overall bid, announces its full year results on Tuesday as well.

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The Eastern Partnership Summit takes place in Riga - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine will meet EU leaders to discuss issues including energy prices and regional security.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is expected to hold sideline talks with his counterparts as Greece's financial crisis escalates once more.

Speaking on Greek TV, the government’s parliamentary speaker, Nikos Filis said that Greece will be unable to make its repayment to the IMF on June 6th without fresh bailout funds.

 

 


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