Just after posting the Mick Wallace video link on Nama, a knock on my blog door left this nice little letter at the doorstep.
Now, I obviously removed the names of people involved and other identifying information. Which leaves us with the substance of the said letter: IBRC are conducting an internal review into interest overcharging...
Why that's nice.
Let's recall, however, the following facts:
- Anglo overcharging was notified to the authorities officially at least as far back as 2013 (see link here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/12615-anglo-overcharging-saga-ganley.html)
- It was known since at least 2010 in the public domain (per link above).
- It was discovered in the court in October 2014 (see here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/11615-full-letter-concerning-ibrc.html)
Add to the above a simple fact: IBRC Liquidators have at their disposal the entire details of all loans issued by Anglo, with their terms and conditions. They also have the entire history of the DIBOR and all other basis rates. In other words, the Liquidators have full access to all requisite information to determine if Anglo (and subsequent to its dissolution other entities holding Anglo loans, including Nama and IBRC Special Liquidators) have continued with the practice of overcharging established by the Anglo.
When you add the above, you get something to the tune of almost 6 years that Anglo, IBRC & Nama and IBRC Special Liquidators had on their hands to address the problem. And only now are they getting to an 'internal review', more than a year after the court has smacked their snouts with it?
Meanwhile, as it says at the bottom of the letter, "Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (in Special Liquidation), trading as IBRC (in Special Liquidation), is operating with a consent, and under the supervision, of the Central Bank of Ireland."
So we have an entity, supervised and consented to by the Central Bank that is 'looking into' the little pesky tiny bitty problem of years of overcharging borrowers on a potentially systemic basis and with quite nasty implications of this having been already discovered in the courts more than a year ago... It is looking into these thing by itself. Regulators, of course, are looking at something else... while consenting to the IBRC operations all along...
Does that sound like we have a 'new era' of regulatory enforcement and oversight designed to prevent the next crisis?.. Or does it sound like everyone's happy to wait for the IBRC to find a quiet way to shove the problem under some proverbial rug, so the Ship of the Reformed Irish Banking System Sails On... unencumbered by the past and the present?
