29/1/16: And the IBRC Interest Overcharging Ship Sails On...

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:

1. 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)
2. It was known since at least 2010 in the public domain (per link above).
3. 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?

20/10/15: New Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland

Congratulations to my former colleague at TCD Economics, and my thesis supervisor from years back, Professor Philip Lane on his appointment. Here is a good summary of my view why the Irish Government has made a good choice, via Central Banking

21/8/2013: FinReg Appointment

The Central Bank announced the appointment of the new FinReg. Announcement is here:
http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/Pages/NewDeputyGovernorFinancialRegulationAppointed.aspx

My (sketchy) views on the appointment are here:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/ireland-regulator-idUKL6N0GM1AF20130821
and here:

Critically, I do not know Mr Roux stand on key points of regulatory and strategic affairs relating to the financial services in Ireland and Europe, including:

1. Role of competition in provision of services and securing systemic stability;
2. Role of consumer protection in delivering the same;
3. Role of implicit and explicit state subsidies to the incumbent institutions and the issue of TBTF institutions;
4. Legacy debt, risks and business strategies and the regulatory approaches for dealing with these;
5. Capture risk of regulatory and supervisory systems in the environment of social partnership and closely linked society, such as Ireland;
6. Recent regulatory activism, e.g. shorting bans;
7. Recent policy shifts toward centralised regulatory oversight and controls, unified banking supervision and regulation, FTT, etc.

There are other potentially important questions to be asked in days to come. 

I most certainly hope Mr Roux can continue with the competent and professional work that Mr Elderfield has started. 

To the credit of its top management team, the Central Bank today is a different institution, transformed from at the top, and still being transformed down the ranks (it takes long time to work through rank-and-file cadre pool). The transformations that took place to-date are for the better and serve as an example of what can be achieved in the rest of Irish public sector. This is not to say that the CBI is free of criticism, but to point out that there have been strongly positive changes in the institution that started with Mr. Elderfield and Prof. Honohan's appointments.

25/3/2013: Cyprus 'deal' - notes from the impact crater

What are the true 'innovations' of the Cypriot 'bailout' deal?

1. At this junction one must face the realisation that European 'leadership' vacuum has reached alarming proportions. Cyprus was pushed to the brink, literally hours away from ELA cut-off, with a deliberate and mechanical precision. This is hardly consistent with any spirit of subsidiarity and/or cooperation that the EU was allegedly built on. In a further affirmation of the mess that is EU policy-making, the markets must now be aware that the EU has no defined approach to dealing with debtors and creditors, nor with issues of assets or liabilities. In other words, five years into the crisis and numerous 'white papers' later, with acronym soup of various 'solutions' and new 'institutions' thicker than pasta fagioli - there is still no clarity, no legal or institutional commitment, no formula, no predictability, but rather politically-motivated swinging from one extreme (no bail-ins in Ireland) to the other (all bailed-in in Cyprus).
2. We now have bailed in uninsured bank deposits within the so-called 'open' economy with 'common currency' and 'common market' based on rules and laws. In other words, unlike in Ireland, Portugal and Greece, the EU has crossed another line.
3. We now have bailed in senior bank bondholders (and the sky did not fall)
4. We now have capital controls within 'common currency' area and within the 'common market' - kind of equivalent to Louisiana declaring its dollars purely domestic to Louisiana. 
5. Bail-ins under the Cypriot deal are non-transparent and not defined, showing that the entire package was put together is a half-brained fashion at the last minute. Surely this, if not the first but very much the most exemplary indicator of the complete mess in policymaking. It further reinforces the view of PSI measures - both in Greece and in Cyprus - as being politically motivated, rather than systemically and legally structured.
6. The fact that the Cypriot banking system will now be completely shut out of the funding markets reinforces my view that unwinding the 'emergency' measures deployed by the ECB during the crisis will be: a) risky, b) costly and c) protracted. As the result, the monetary policy risks missing the window for optimal interest rates reaction and either over-reaching on the inflationary side or over-tightening to the detriment to future growth. either way, peripheral countries will be the likely victims.

Overall, from the EU-wide point of view, Cypriot 'deal':

• Does not reduce the risk of contagion or re-amplification of the crisis in other peripheral states;
• Does not create or even enable a break between sovereign and bank crises; 
• Adds to the overall quantum of policy uncertainty; 
• Raises even more doubts as to the functionality of the cornerstone crisis-related institutions (ESM and OMT); and
• Acts to strengthen the hand of eurosceptic, nationalist and populist political movements and parties in the Euro area 'periphery'.

25/3/2013: Debt, Demand & Deposits: Cyprus 2013

Der Spiegel has a handy graphic detailing the extent and the depth of the Financial Services sector in Cyprus...

[link]

The above lumps together couple of things that should, really, be addressed:

1. Cyprus' financing needs only cover banks recapitalisations to the deposits base as provided by the end-of-January 2013 figures. Since then at least EUR3-5 billion and more likely even more fled the country. And selection bias suggests that larger depositors (potentially with more political connections) were more likely to avail of 'systemic' exemptions to withdrawals in recent days.
2. As termed deposits mature, more will leave, unless the Government imposes involuntary lock-in for depositors with termed contracts.
3. Cyprus' financing needs above do not include non-CB and non-deposit funding for the banks that is going to mature in months to come and has to be replaced by some other source of funds (presumably we can assume that ECB / ELA will step in, but I don't see how that arrangement in the medium term can be pleasing to the ECB).
4. The deposits above do not break out MFI deposits, corporate deposits and personal deposits. It is one thing to bail-in personal accounts and yet altogether another matter to bail-in corporations and other banks (the former are subject to more strict capital controls than the latter two).

These are material risks to the sustainability of the Cypriot 'bailout' programme.

25/3/2013: Bankrupted Cyprus, aka 'The Rescue'

While European 'leaders' celebrate the breakthrough 'bailout' agreement with Cyprus, let's get back to Planet Reality, folks. The 'deal' is based on a EUR10bn loan to the Cypriot Government for which the taxpayers will be on the hook.

EUR10bn = 56.2% of the country 2013 forecast GDP.

And now, let's begin counting the proverbial chickens:

1. IMF forecast for GDP - used above - is based on nominal GDP growth over the fiscal year 2013 of 0.33%. Even by IMF 'rosy' standards this is way off the mark, as other (EU Commission and Cypriot own) forecasts envisioned GDP contracting between 0.5% and 1.3% in 2013.
2. IMF forecast is based on pre-bailout assumptions with the banking sector returns to the economy being at the levels consistent with full functioning of the Cypriot financial services sector.
3. Even outside the above points, IMF forecast through 2017 saw Government debt/GDP ratio in Cyprus rising to 106.11%, prior to the current 'deal' on foot of forecast GDP growth of 2.87% per annum on average between 2013 and 2017.

Now, with the deal:

1. Shrinkage of the financial services sector will be immediate and deep;
2. Deficit financing of any capital investment by the Cypriot Government will cease;
3. New debt is going to be loaded onto the country;
4. Reduced savings and exits by larger depositors will mean reduced revenues for the economy, etc

Much of this was outlined in my previous post on debt sustainability in Cyprus (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/03/2432013-are-cypriot-debt-dynamics-worse.html)

Now, let's do simple exercise. Add EUR10bn to Cypriot debt pile and get scenario of Cyprus (post-crisis with no growth effects).

Then, adjust GDP growth from 2013 through 2017 to yield average rate of economic growth of -0.18% annually (note, this is much more benign than Greek forecasts for the first 5 years of the crisis which are equal to -2.94% annually on average). This yields scenario of Cyprus (post-crisis with growth effects).

The above two scenarios are compared in the chart below against Greek forecasts by the IMF and the pre-'bailout' forecast by the IMF for Cyprus:

This is what the EU leadership is currently celebrating - a wholesale, outright bankrupting of the entire country. Well done, lads!

24/3/2013: Few Cypriot Myths & Few Billions in Losses

Ever wondered why would the IMF (and reportedly the EU Commission) reject the proposed (Plan B) Cypriot Government raid on state pensions funds? Oh... ok... IMF review from November 2011:

Naughty, naughty little Cyprus...

And the very same IMF note also sheds some light on those 'oligarchs' deposits that are so vast, the entire EU is apparently chocking on chicken breasts at Herman von Frompuy's dinners:

"First, non-resident deposits (NRD) in Cypriot banks (excluding deposits raised  abroad by foreign affiliates) are €23 billion (125 percent of GDP), most of which are  short-term at low interest rates [note: ECB official data does not exclude foreign affiliates deposits, which are normally out of touch in levy imposition. Also note: much of bulls**t about Russian oligarchs deposits was about high interest rates allegedly collected by them on Cyprus deposits. Guess that wasn't really the case as chart below confirms: deposit rates decline sharply by nationality grouping for both corporates and individuals... so who was exactly earning 'high returns' on Cypriot deposits? oh, well... Cypriots...].

"These could prove unstable in the event of  further confidence shocks. [In other words, Cyprus requires very stringent capital controls if it is to avoid instantaneous bankruptcy even with ELA continuing]

"This risk is partly mitigated by the 70 percent liquid asset requirement against the €12 billion in NRD in foreign currency), and the 20 percent requirement for the €11 billion in euro-denominated NRD). [Wow, so apparently 'oligarchs' deposits carry massive safety cushions, whilst 'ordinary' depositors are not...]

"Second, €17 billion in deposits collected in the Greek branches of the three largest Cypriot-owned banks could be subject to outflows in response to difficult conditions in Greece. Outflows in the first half of 2011 were close to €3 billion (nearly 15 percent of the total), although a portion of these returned to the Cypriot parents as NRD. [Now, there was more of Greek money than 'oligarchs'?]

Now, couple more revealing charts:

Clearly, structuring PSI the EU authorities & IMF knew the above factoid, right? Just as they knew the following (which clearly highlights the fact that any substantial hit on Cypriot banks would have immediately spelled insolvency of the entire economy):

24/3/2013: Are Cypriot Debt Dynamics Worse than Greek?

A nice chart via Pictet (link) on the size of the banking sector in Cyprus and its dynamics since 2006:

Now, do notice, reducing the above to 300-330% of GDP as required by the Troika in Plan A (and so far not disputed by the Cypriot Government) will imply lowering liabilities by EUR66.6 billion. Overall, banking margins in Cyprus are running at around 1.2% net of funding costs, we can roughly raise that to double to include wages and other costs spillovers, which implies that EUR66.6bn deleveraging of liabilities should take out of the Cypriot GDP somewhere around EUR1.5bn annually or 9% of GDP. Auxilliary services, e.g. legal, accounting and associated expatriate community benefits that arise in relation to international banking services being offered from Cyprus will also have to be scaled back. Assuming that these account for 50% of the margin returns to the economy, overall hit on Cypriot economy from deleveraging can be closer to EUR2.2bn annually or 12.7% of GDP.

Now, consider the loans package of EUR10 billion that Cyprus is set to receive if it manages to close the EUR5.8 billion gap. Absent banking sector deleveraging, this will push Cypriot Government debt/GDP ratio to over 140% of GDP. However, with reduction in GDP, the debt/GDP ratio (assuming to avoid timing considerations assumptions a one-off hit to GDP) will rise to 161%.

Now, recall that IMF and Troika 'sustainability' bound for debt/GDP ratio used to be 120%. We are now clearly beyond that absolutely abstract number even without the banking sector deleveraging. And let's take the path of debt/GDP ratio forecast by the IMF which would have seen - absent the 'rescue' package - debt/GDP ratio in Cyprus rising 106.1% of GDP by 2017. With the 'rescue' package and banking sector deleveraging, this can now be expected to rise to 174% of GDP in 2017 against Greek debt of 153% of GDP.

In short, the EU 'rescue' is going to simply wipe Cyprus off the map in economic terms. All debt 'sustainability' consideration are now out of the window.

Here's the chart:

Of course, the above analysis is crude as it ignores:

1. Potential positive effects of replacement activity and the fabled 'gas revenues' etc - which presumably were already reflected in GDP growth figures in the IMF forecasts
2. Potential negative effects of tourism, real estate sales and other services declines due to the reduced activity in the banking sector, which can raise the above adverse impact of the banking sector deleveraging to 15% of GDP. Corporation tax increases can yield further losses.
3. Timing issues for the deleveraging which is not expected to happen overnight.

Nonetheless, all in, there have to be some severe doubts as to viability of the Cypriot debt path under the Troika Plan A, let alone under the Cypriot Plan B.

22/3/2013: Cypriot Plan B - any better than Plan A?

So the reports are that Cyprus has a Plan B. And the outlines of the Plan - filtering through yesterday - are quite delusional.

The Plan consists of 3 main bits:

1. Split Laiki bank (see below) into a good and a bad bank. The 'bad' bank will take on deposits of over 100K and deposits under 100K (guaranteed by the State) will be shifted into 'good' bank. Other banks will be recapitalised but there are no specific as to how, when or to what levels of capital. This stage of the Plan aims to reduce the recapitalisation costs by about €2.3bn. The problems with this stage are massive, however. First: smaller depositors are more likely to run on the bank as they are less likely to have termed deposits and as their withdrawals (even under capital controls to be imposed - see below) will be less restricted than for larger depositors. In other words, the Plan B is likely to reduce stability of deposits and funding in the resulting 'good' bank. Second: while Cypriot banking system losses are currently crystallised, reducing uncertainty for any recapitalization, there is no guarantee that depositors flight will not undermine their balance sheets beyond capital injections repair. Thirdly: the new 'good' bank will have a balance sheet (again, see table below) saddled with massive exposure to ELA & ECB funding at ca 40% of the total liabilities. If associated assets move along with larger depositors, it is likely that ECB funding ratio to Assets is going to be close to 50%. How on earth can this be called a 'good' bank beats me.

2. Step two in the delirious process of Plan B repairs of the Cypriot banking system will be the creation of a sovereign wealth fund backed by state, church, central bank and pension funds 'assets'. Even 'future gas revenues' are thrown into the pot. Put simply, the fund will be a direct raid on state pension funds, state properties and enterprises and gold reserves. It will also contain a direct link to the collective psychosis induced by the crisis - the pipe dream of Cypriot 'Saudi Arabia of the Mediterranean' Republic. Honestly, folks, this crisis has taught us one thing: the quantity of hope-for oil & gas reserves in the country is directly proportional to the degree of economic / financial / fiscal insolvency of the nation. So, having set up a bogus and bizarre fund (with hodgepodge of assets and a rich dose of 'dreamin in the night' claims to assets) the state will issue 6-year bonds against these 'assets' to raise some €2.5bn. Now, what idiot is going to voluntarily buy into this fund is quite unclear at this stage, but presumably, with bond yields set at crippling levels, the fund will find some ready buyers.

3. Step 3: the remaining shortfall of €1bn is to be covered through a small deposit levy on deposits above 100K.


Laiki bank latest balance sheet summary is provided (via Global Macro Monitor) here:

It is a whooper… with Assets at EUR30.375bn the bank is over 178% of Cypriot GDP. Deposits are at 105% of GDP.

The question is whether this plan, even if acceptable to the EU and ECB, will prevent or even restrict the deposits flight once the Cypriot banking system opens up. The EU Commission is working with Cypriot Government on developing capital controls to stem outflow of funds. But there are serious questions as to whether such capital controls can be imposed in the country that is part of the common market.

Another pesky problem is whether the bonds issued by the fund in Step 2 above will count toward Government debt. Presumably, EU can allow any sort of fudge to be created (e.g. Nama SPV in Ireland) to avoid such recognition. If not, then whole Plan B is a random flop of a dead whale beached on Cypriot shores…

Third pesky issue is what happens if the Fund goes bust. With pension funds committed to it, will the Cypriot state simply default on all of its pensions obligations? deport its pensioners to Northern Cyprus? whack the remaining (I doubt there will be any) Russian 'oligarchs' once again? or invade Switzerland? The Cypriot Government attempted to dress up the Plan B as the means to avoiding hitting small savers and ordinary people with the bank levy. It so far seems like risky leveraging of ordinary retirees and future retirees to plug the very same hole that would have been created in their budgets by the deposits levy.


Meanwhile, here's the question for those reading this blog in Ireland: According to the ESCB Statures Article 14.3, the Governing Council of ECB can make a determination to shut off liquidity assistance to the national banking system only on foot of a 2/3rd majority vote. The ECB Council did announce such a move for Cyprus comes Monday. This implies that at least one peripheral state National Central Bank governor casted the vote against Cyprus. Would that have been our Patrick Honohan, one wonders, given the frequent propensity of Irish officials to kick other peripheral states in order to gain small favours from the EU/ECB?

02/06/11: Central Bank Monthly Stats - IRL 6

This is the second post of two covering Central Bank stats for April 2011. The first post (here) focused on Domestic Group of banks. This post deals with Covered Institutions (the IRL-6 banks that are on a life support from the Government).

First up - central bank and ECB lending to banks was broken down into:

• Other assets held by the CBofI - aka lending by CBofI itself to Irish banks - declined from €66.7bn in March to €54.15bn, this mans that mom lending by CBofI fell €12.64bn (-18.93%) and year on year it is now up €40.5bn (+296.8%)
• Borrowing from the Eurosystem (ECB) declined from €79.22bn to €74.23bn - a drop of €4.985bn mom or 6.29%. Relative to April 2010, borrowing increased €38.31bn which almost exactly off-sets increases in CBofI lending, suggesting a transfer of risk from ECB to CBofI
• Total loans to Irish 6 from Euro system and CBofI amounted to €128.4bn in April 2011 down €17.63bn mom (-12.1%). Relative to April 2010, loans increased €78.81bn or 159%.
  

On deposits side:

• Total deposits in IRL 6 have increased from €224.17bn in March to €235.2bn in April an increase of 4.93% mom. Relative to April 2010, deposits are still down €14.07bn or 5.65%
• However, the main driver for these increases were deposits from the Irish Government. Government deposits rose €12.743bn in April (+148.4%) mom and are up €18.566bn (+671.5%) year on year - the very same €18 billion mentioned in the first post.
• Private sector deposits also increased, 1.81% or €1.93bn mom, but remain €20.92bn on April 2010 (-16.2%)
• Monetary institutions deposits dropped €3.63bn mom (-3.32%) and €11.72bn (-9.98%) yoy
  

On lending side:

• Loans to Irish residents fell €6.97bn (-2.2%) mom to €314.14bn. Loans stood at €27.97bn below April 2010 (a decline of 8.18% yoy)
• Loans to General Government were marginally up €47mln to €28.3bn, which means that IRL 6 are the dominant players in lending to Irish Government (as asserted in the previous post)
• Loans to other Monetary Institutions werte down €4.05bn mom (-375%) and
• Loans to Private Sector fell additional €2.97bn (-1.61%) mom and €33.633bn (-15.62%) yoy to €181.71bn.

Lastly, loans to deposits ratios:

• LTDs for all IRL 6 institutions improved by 10 percentage points to 133.56% in April 2011, which represents a decline of 4 percentage points yoy
• LTDs for Private Sector lending fell 6 percentage points in April to 167.9%, an increase of 1 percentage point on April 2010.

In other words, deleveraging over the last 12 months has been led by Government and other financial isntitutions activities, not by private sector pay-down of debt to deposits ratios.

02/06/2011: Central Bank Monthly Stats - Domestic Group

Ok, folks, with some brief delay due to computational complexities - here are charts on Irish banking sector health. These are aggregates from the CBofI monthly stats for April 2011.

This release is broken into 2 post. The first post deals with Domestic Group of banks (see note Credit Institutions Resident in the Republic of Ireland). The second post will deal with Ireland-6 Zombies... err... banks that is known as Guaranteed or Covered Institutions.

Headlines first:

• Total Private Sector Deposits are now at €164.9bn or €1.93bn up on April 2011 (+1.18%) and still €19.65bn down year on year (-10.64%)
• All of this increase is due to Overnight deposits which are up €2.09bn (+2.53%) mom and down just €1.52bn yoy
• Deposits with maturity <2 years declined to €54.94bn in April, down €57mln (0.1%) mom and €13.64bn (-19.9%) yoy
• Deposits with maturity >2 years rose €56mln (+0.52%) mom to €10.78bn, which still implies a decline of €1.71bn (-13.71%) yoy
• Deposits redeemable at notice <3 months were down €162mln (-1.1%) mom to €14.5bn and down €2.77bn (-16.05%) yoy

Chart to illustrate:
Now, take a look at total deposits by source:

Please note the above marking an increase in Government deposits as an important driver of deposits dynamics. Here are the details:

• Domestic Group institutions saw their total liabilities fall to €712.72bn in April - a decline of €10.22bn mom (-1.41%) or a drop of €65.18bn (-8.38%) yoy (see chart below)
  
• Deposits rose across the Domestic Group by €10.46bn mom (+3.7%) although they remain down €12.53bn (-9.63%) yoy
• Clearly, as chart above shows, the increase in deposits was due primarily to Government deposits with Irish banks (well flagged before by many other researchers, this is really a transfer game whereby the Government mandated transfer of some €18bn of its reserves to Irish banks, increasing the risk to these funds, but creating an artificial improvement in the banks balance sheets). Government deposits rose €12.781bn (+143.6%) mom in April and are now up - yes, you;ve guessed it - €18.52bn (+586.2%) yoy
• Another positive driver, albeit much smaller than Government, were Private Sector deposits, which rose €2.0bn (more accurately €1,999mln) or 1.32% mom, while still falling €21.85bn (-12.46%) short of April 2010 levels.
• Monetary Institutions deposits with Domestic Group banks were down €4.325bn (-3.54%) mom in April and down €12.534bn (-9.63%) yoy.

Now, consider loans to deposit ratios:

Thanks to Government deposits, the series are declining for overall Domestic Group:

• Overall LTDs fell 7 percentage points mom from 136.76% in March to 129.67% in April, yoy decline is 9 percentage points
• LTDs for Private Sector declined 4% mom to 155.15% in April, this was consistent with a 12 percentage points decline year on year.

Lastly, let's consider loans to Irish residents within the system:

• Overall loans to Irish residents fell from €386.3bn in March to €379.84bn in April a decline of 1.68% mom and 11.47% yoy
• Loans to Monetary Institutions declined by €3.31bn (-2.84%) mom and are down €11.23bn (-9.03%) yoy
• Loans to Government went up €45mln mom to €28.49bn (+0.16% mom and 150.75% yoy). Over the last 12 months Irish banks have revolved some €17.13bn worth of lending (bonds purchases) back to the State in what can only be described as a circular transfer of money from taxpayers underwriting banks to banks lending back to taxpayers to underwrite the banks
• Private Sector loans meanwhile declined €3.21bn (-1.33%) mom to €238.2bn. This means that over the last 12 months credit supply to private sector dropped a massive 18.8% or €55.09bn. Roughly 1/3 of the annual GDP has been sucked out of the real economy by the banking crisis within just 12 months.

Chart to illustrate:

Economics 21/03/2010: Reckless expectations, not competition

This is a lengthy post - to reflect the importance of the issue at hand. And it is based largely on data from Professor Brian Lucey, with my added analysis.

The proposition that this post is proving is the following one:

Far from being harmed by competition from foreign lenders, Irish banking sector has suffered from its own disease of reckless lending. In fact, competition in Irish banking remains remarkably close (although below) European average and is acting as a stabilizing force in the markets relative to other factors.


I always found the argument that ‘too much competition in banking was the driver of excessive lending’ to be an economically illiterate one. Even though this view has been professed by some of my most esteemed colleagues in economics.

In theory, competition acts to lower margins in the sector, and since it takes time to build up competitive pressure, the sectors that are facing competition are characterized by stable, established players. In other words, in most cases, sectors with a lot of competition are older, mature ones. This fact is even more pronounced if entry into the sector is associated with significant capital cost requirements. Banking – in particular run of the mill, non-innovative traditional type – is the case in point everywhere in the world.

As competition drives margins down, making quick buck becomes impossible. You can’t hope to write a few high margin, high risk loans and reap huge returns. So firms in highly competitive sectors compete against each other on the basis of longer term strategies that are more stable and prudent. Deploying virtually commoditized services or products to larger numbers of population. Reputation and ever-increasing efficiencies in operations become the driving factors of every surviving firm’s success. And these promote longer term stability of the sector.

Coase’s famous proposition about transaction costs provides a basis for such a corollary.

This means that in the case of Irish banking during the last decade, if competition was indeed driving down the margins in lending (as our stockbrokers, the Government and policy analysts ardently argue today), then the following should have happened.

1. Banks should have become more prudent over time in lending and risk pricing,
2. There should have been broader diversification of the banks lending portfolia, with the bulk of new loans concentrating in the areas relating directly to depositor base – corporate and household lending, and a hefty fringe of higher-margin inter-mediation lending to financial institutions, and
3. Banks would be seeking to ‘bundle’ more services to differentiate from competitors and enhance margins.
   

In Ireland, of course, during the alleged period of ‘harmful competition’ exactly the opposite took place. Let me use Prof Brian Lucey’s data (with added analysis from myself) to show you the facts.

Firstly, Irish banks became less prudent in lending – as exemplified by falling loans approvals criteria, and by rising LTVs:

1. Lending to private sector as % of GDP was ca 50% in 1995, reaching 100% in 1998 and rising to 300% in 2009
2. Vast increases in lending to developers: in 1997 there were €10bn lent out to developers against €20bn in mortgages; in 2008 these figures were €110bn and €140bn respectively
3. Over the time when lending to private sector rose 600%, mortgages lending rose 550%, our GDP rose by 75%
   

Secondly, banks reduced their assets and liabilities diversification (charts 1-3 below) setting themselves up for a massive rise in asymmetric risk exposures.

On the funding side, out went customers deposits, in came banks deposits, foreign deposits and bonds and Irish bonds.
Capital ratios fell out of the way.

And so there has been a change in the world of Irish banking that no other competitive and mature sector of any economy has ever seen. Why? Was it because foreign banks started pushing the timid boys of BofI and AIB and Anglo and INBS out into reckless competitive lending?

You’ve gotta be mad to believe this sop. In reality, the Irish banks’ assets tell the story.

Business loans collapsed, personal loans (the stuff that allegedly, according to the likes of the Irish Times have fuelled our cars and clothing shopping binge during the Celtic Tiger years) actually declined in importance as well. Financial intermediation – the higher margin, higher risk thingy that so severely impacted the US banks – was down as well. No, competition was not driving Irish banks into the hands of higher margin lending. It was driving them into the hands of our property developers. We didn’t have a derivatives and speculative financial investment crisis here – the one that was allegedly caused by the foreign banks coming in and forcing our good boys to cut margins on run-of-the-mill ordinary lending. No, we had an old fashioned disaster of construction and property lending.

And this lending could not have been driven by foreign banks. It came from the total expansion of credit in the economy, presided over by our Central Bank and Financial Regulator, our Government and ECB.

Just how dramatic this change was? Take a look at the ratio of private sector credit to national income in the chart below.
Even a child could have seen the bust coming. The reason that our Financial Regulator and Central Bank failed to see this, despite publishing all this data in the first place, is that they were simply not looking. The former probably obsessed with the pension perks, the latter – well, may be because all the fine art in the Central Bank’s own collection was just too much of a distraction. Who knows? But judging by the above chart lack of significant correction during the crisis – we know who will pay for this in the end. Us, the taxpayers.
As chart above shows, the fundamentals for the boom – in lending and in construction – were never there, folks. And the banks missed that completely. As did our regulators and our policymakers. Brian Lucey of TCD School of Business provides evidence on what was really going on in the Irish banks (again, note that some of the analysis below is mine).
Chart above, based on the Central Bank Credit Survey, basically shows the impact three major forces: expectations of increased competition by the banks, improved banks outlook on the Irish economy three months ahead, and LTVs expectations had in Irish banks willingness to increase lending. Scores above 3 represent tightening of credit conditions (as in banks expecting to cut lending to households), while scores below 3 show forces driving looser credit to households.

If the proposition that foreign banks competition pressures drove Irish banks into looser credit supply were to be correct, one would expect the blue line above to reach far deeper into ‘below 3’ scores than the other two lines. Alas, it did not dip. In fact, competition from other banks was recognized by Irish Bankers themselves to be the least improtant factor contributing to credit supply expansion. Instead, their over-optimism about economic prospects (red line) and their willingess to give away cash at massively inlfated LTVs (the orange line – also a proxy for Bankers’ optimism regarding future direction of house prices) were the two main drivers of credit boom.

Where’s the evidence on ‘harmful competition’ that so many Central Bank leaders, the stockbrokers and Government spokespersons have decried in recent past?

The delirium of our bankers was actually so out of any proportion that, as the surveys data shows, even amidst the implosion of the housing markets since early 2008 they were still saying “hang on....we expect that changes in LTV and economic prosoects will cause us to loosen in the next 3 months". In other words, they were chasing the deflating bubble, not the imaginary foreign banks competitiors.

Let’s take another look at Brian Lucey’s data. Take the scores for Ireland in the above surveys and take their ratios to the Euro area average scores. If the ratio is in excess of 1, then the said factor has contributed to greater tightening in credit supply in Ireland than in the Euro area. If it is less than 1, then the said factor has contributed more to loosening in lending in Ireland than in the Euro area.
So, really, folks, competition in Ireland was actually more of a stabilizing force, than de-stabilizing one. LTV’s optimism and lack of realism in economic forecasts were the two main driving forces of the boom.

Lastly, ECB Herfindahl Index (ratio of Ireland to “big5” EU states) provides exactly the same conclusions:
Again, what above shows is that on virtually every occasion, Irish reading for Herfindahl Index (measuring degree of concentration in banking sector) is in excess of the average Index reading for top 5 EU countries. In other words, there was no such thing as ‘too much competition’ going on in Irish banking sector. If anything, there was somwhat too little of it, compared to Germany, France, Italy, UK and the Netherlands.

And now, for the test of all of this. The chart below regresses each survey factor on the private sector credit index. The negatively sloped line – for LTV and economic prospect factors combined - shows that when this factor scoring in the survey increased, lending became tighter. Positively sloped line – for competition – shows that when competition pressures rose (factor reading declined), lending actually got tighter. And the statistical significance of the LTV and expectations factors is more than double that of competition...
Let’s just stop talking nonesense about too much competition in Irish banking sector drove unsustainable lending. More likely – an anticiaption by our bankers that no matter what they do, they will never be allowed to fail by the state, plus an absolutely rediculous expectations about opur economy drove our banks to the brink.

The real Golden Circle of Ireland Inc: Updated

An excellent letter today in the Irish Times by Myles Duffy (do see a link to his blog here) puts into perspective the real extent of Ireland's Golden Circle - reaching, cancer-like deep into our public service leadership. I have questioned in this blog on several occasions the competency of the CBFSAI. Now, as Myles puts it in his letter (linked here):

"When the governor of the Central Bank appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs, ...the committee was reminded that the governor is paid an annual salary of €348,000, a figure that reflects the voluntary reduction taken last October from the €368,000 that he had hitherto been paid.

It is interesting to compare the salary for this position with those whose influence on global economic affairs is absolutely pivotal and whose utterances and nuances greatly affect the world investment climate and the effectiveness of economic recovery initiatives.

The US Federal Reserve system consists of 12 federal reserve banks ...supported by the Federal Reserve Board based in Washington DC. The system as a whole employs almost 20,000 people and the board employs 2,053. The annual salary of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr Ber Bernanke, is $191,300 (€150,000), and was approved by the US Congress in February 2008.

The president of the European Central Bank, M Jean-Claude Trichet, oversees a staff of 1,499 and was paid €351,816 last year. He is also provided with a residence, in lieu of a residential allowance, but his salary is subject to EU tax, pension, medical and accident insurance deductions.

...The Bank of Canada’s governor, Mr David Dodge, whose seven-year term ended on January 31st, was paid on a salary scale with a maximum of 407,900 Canadian dollars (€250,000).

...Mr Hurley ...and seven [out of eight] of his predecessors formerly held the position of secretary general of the Department of Finance... The salary of the governor is therefore influenced by that of the secretary general of the Department of Finance. This was set at €303,000 in September 2007 by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector; the figure may have been reduced voluntarily by the current incumbent."

Given that Mr Hurley's position has none of the traditional demands of the Central Banks' chiefs across the world - he does not manage national currency, he has no role to play in interest rates and general monetary policy, etc - in terms of economic and financial functions he carries, he is largely a regulatory officer of the ECB. And yet he earns more than his real boss - the head of ECB. Vastly more when the cost of his pension and tax advantages to being located in Ireland are factored in. In fact, Mr Hurley is paid more in real terms than some of those whose names were listed as belonging to the Anglo's 10. This is pretty much all that needs to be said.


Update: In an unrelated (to the above) story, here is another potential affiliate (not quite a member) of the Golden Circle of those who have grown better off on the back of the Celtic Tiger. This time - from the shores of America. See this article in WSJ (here) - hat tip to PMD - on venerable and (for now?) honourable Senator Chris Dodd's dealings in Irish real estate...

Senator Dodd (D, Connecticut), Chairman of the US Senate Committtee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, is at the centre of the US policymakers efforts to deal with the financial crisis. He has been in the past insturmental in aggresive expansion of the Freddie-Fannie-Ginnie mandates to increase lending to lower income minorities - a move that has been at the heart of the current sub-prime mortgages collapse. Senator Dodd is also a senior member of the US Senate Committe on Foreign Relations and a member of the Subcommittee on European Affairs - a position of power that would require, one presumes, to keep any personal European affairs at arms length and spankingly clean. Adding more to the circus of titles, he is a member of the US Senate Committee on Rules and Administration - an entity responsible for setting rules of ethical conduct and compliance in the Senate.

Now, here are the main points of the story in WSJ:

"The story starts in 1994, when the Senator became one-third owner of a 10-acre estate, then valued at $160,000, on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay. William Kessinger bought the other two-thirds share in the estate. Edward Downe, Jr., who has been a business partner of Mr. Kessinger, signed the deed as a witness. Senator Dodd and Mr. Downe are long-time friends, and in 1986 they had purchased a condominium together in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Downe is also quite the character. The year before the Galway deal, in 1993, he pleaded guilty to insider trading and securities fraud and in 1994 agreed to pay the SEC $11 million in a civil settlement. The crimes were felonies and in 2001, as President Clinton was getting ready to leave office, Mr. Dodd successfully lobbied the White House for a full pardon for Mr. Downe.

The next year -- according to a transfer document at the Irish land registry... -- Mr. Kessinger sold his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd for $122,351. The Senator says he actually paid Mr. Kessinger $127,000, which he claims was based on an appraisal at the time. That means, at best, poor Mr. Kessinger earned less than 19% over eight years on the sale of his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd. But according to Ireland's Central Bank, prices of existing homes in Ireland quadrupled from 1994 to 2004.

In his Senate financial disclosure documents from 2002-2007, Mr. Dodd reported that the Galway home was worth between $100,001 and $250,000. However, Mr. Rennie reports that in 2006 and 2007 the Senator added a footnote that reads: "value based on appraisal at time of purchase."

Mr. Dodd had good reason to add the qualifier. Senate rules call for valuations to be current and anyone who looked into the estimate would immediately spot Mr. Dodd's lowballing. A June 17, 2007 feature in Britain's Sunday Times did just that. "Diary" observed that in Roundstone "a two-bed recently made E680,000 ($918,000) and a cottage is currently on offer for E800,000." Noting Mr. Dodd's estimate of his property -- between E75,000 and E185,000 -- the diarist quipped, "to hell with the stamp duty, and form an orderly queue."

Mr. Dodd is busy these days blaming everyone else for the real-estate bubble and financial meltdown. But he owes his constituents and the Senate an honest accounting of his Galway property over the past 15 years. If its value grew with the rest of the area, he needs to explain why Mr. Kessinger handed it over for a song, why that isn't an unreported gift under Senate rules, and what role Mr. Downe might have played as a middleman.

More broadly, Connecticut voters might want to know why their senior Senator has hung around for years with Mr. Downe, the kind of financial scoundrel Mr. Dodd spends so much time denouncing."

Now, of course, this side of the Atlantic we would like to know - was Senator Dodd, presumably a US resident, liable for tax on his purchase of the land share and how this tax was assessed.