Irish Bank to be regulated by ECB

AIB and Bank of Ireland and at least one more systemically important institution operating here will be regulated directly by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt when the new European banking supervisory regime comes into force, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan told the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform yesterday.

Mr Noonan also reiterated that the Irish banks are well capitalised and said there was no evidence that they would need additional funds from the State when a new set of stress tests is completed next year. When asked by Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty to identify which Irish banks would be directly regulated by Frankfurt, Mr Noonan said “AIB and Bank of Ireland will be two. We could have a number of bids on the table for the third.”

He said the third institution could be Ulster Bank, in spite of the fact that it is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, which is regulated in the UK. It will come down to which banks are considered “systemically important”, he added. Source: The Irish Times