Showing posts with label Irish banking crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish banking crisis. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

16/10/19: Recalling the Celtic Tiger


Recalling the Celtic Tiger, edited by Brian Lucey, Eamon Maher and Eugene O’Brien is coming out this week from the series of Reimagining Ireland Volume 93, published by Peter Lang, DOI 10.3726/b16190, ISBN 978-1-78997-286-3.

The book includes 12 mini-chapters by myself and multitude of contributions from some top-level contributors. Wroth buying and reading... and can be ordered here: https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/71254.





Monday, June 22, 2015

22/6/15: IMF Review of Ireland: Part 2: Banks


IMF assessment of Irish banking sector remains pretty darn gloomy, even if the rhetoric has been changing toward more cheerleading, less warning. Here is the core statement:

"Bank health continues to improve, but impaired assets remain high and profitability low. The contraction in the three domestic banks’ interest earning assets continued, albeit at a slower pace in 2014." IN other words, deleveraging is ongoing.

"Nonetheless, operating profitability doubled to 0.8 percent of assets on foot of lower funding costs as well as nonrecurrent gains from asset sales and revaluations (Table 8). Led by the CRE and SME loan books, there was a sizable fall in the stock of nonperforming loans (NPL), by some 19 percent in 2014, although NPLs are still 23 percent of loans." Note, at 23% we are still the second worst performing banking system in the euro area, after Greece.

"This fall, together with rising property prices, allowed significant provision releases while keeping the coverage ratio stable. Profitability after provisions was achieved for the first time since the onset of the crisis. Together with lower risk weighted assets, this lifted the three banks’ aggregate core tier 1 capital ratio by over 1 percentage point, to 14½ percent."


Now, take a look at the chart above: loans volume fell EUR6.5bn y/y (-3.6%), but interest income remained intact at EUR7.9bn. While funding costs fell EUR3.7bn y/y. The result is that the banks squeezed more out of fewer loans both on the margin and in total. Give it a thought: loans should be getting cheaper, but instead banks are getting 'healthier'. At the expense of who? Why, the remaining borrowers. Net trading profits now turned losses in 2014 compared to 2013. Offset by one-off profits.

Deposits also fell in 2014 compared to 2013 as economy set into a 'robust recovery'. It looks like all the jobs creation going around ain't helping savings.

A summary / easier to read table:



Notice, in addition to the above discussion, the Texas Ratio: Non-Performing Loans ratio to Provisions + CT1 capital (higher ratio, higher risk in the system). At 108, things are better now than in 2012-2013, but on average, 2011-2012 Texas ratio was around 104, better than 2014 ratio. And that with 51.7% coverage ratio and with CT1 at 14.5%. Ugh?..

On the other hand, deleveraging helped so far: loan/deposit ratio is now at 108% a major improvement on the past.

Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) - a ratio of longer term funding to longer term liabilities and should be >100% in theory. This is now at 110.5%, first time above 100% - a good sign, reflective of much improved funding conditions for all euro area banks as well as Irish banks' gains.

Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) - monitoring the extent to which banks hold the necessary assets to cover any short-term liquidity shocks (basically, how much in highly liquid assets banks hold) is also rising and is above 100% - another positive for the banks.


Still, the above gains in lending margins - the rate of banks' extraction from the real economy - are not enough for the IMF. "Lending interest rates must enable banks to generate adequate profits to support new lending. While increasing, Irish banks’
operating profitability remains relatively low. Declines in funding costs aided by QE will assist, but there are also drags from the prevalence of tracker mortgages in loan portfolios and from prospects for a prolonged period of low ECB rates. However, with rates on new floating rate mortgages at 4.1 percent at end March, compared with an average of 2.1 percent in the euro area, political pressures to reduce mortgage rates have emerged. The mission stressed the importance of loan pricing adequate to cover credit losses—including the high costs of collateral realization in Ireland—and to build capital needed to transition to fully loaded Basel III requirements in order to avoid impediments to a revival of lending."



Here's a question IMF might want to ask: if Irish banks are already charging almost double the rates charged by other banks, while enjoying lower costs of funding and falling impairments, then why is Irish banks profitability a concern? And more pertinently, how is hiking effective rates charged in this economy going to help the banks with legacy loans, especially those that are currently marginally performing and only need a slight nudge to slip into arrears? And another question, if Irish banks charge double the rates of other banks, what is holding these other banks coming into the Irish market? Finally, how on earth charging even higher rates will support 'revival of lending'?

Ah, yes, question, questions… not many answers. But, per IMF, everything is happy in the banking sector in Ireland. Just a bit more blood-letting from the borrowers (distressed - via arrears resolutions tightening, performing - via higher interest charges) and there will be a boom. One wonders - a boom in what, exactly? Insolvencies?

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

10/6/2015: A Bombshell Goes Off on Anglo, IBRC & Nama


Here are the excerpts from the very important speech delivered today in the Dail by Deputy Peter Mathews. And I urge you – the public and professional readers of this blog – to read through the length of this.

My focus here is one core aspect of the IBRC scandal that remains largely ignored by the Government and the media and that Deputy Mathews raises. For those inclined, full official transcript is available here. In the quotes below, bold and italics are emphasising points of major importance and are added by me.


… I want to talk about how the so-called profits of IBRC were inflated for a period starting in 1993 and travelling forward to the present date. There were two ways this was done.”
Note, the word ‘inflated’ in relation to reported profits. If such inflation indeed take place, it would imply that Anglo reported profits were fraudulent. And this covers years from the early 1990s through 2003. That is a lot of years of potential major corporate fraud – fraud that (if proven such) would involve deliberate overcharging of clients, concealment of such overcharging and reporting this overcharging on the revenue and profits side of the company accounts.


The Act
“First was the direct manipulation of interest charges and the concealment of loaded interest, which happened in the majority of cases. An extensive exercise carried out by Bank Check revealed this. … Some 494 separate DIBOR-EURIBOR rates were reconciled and found to be loaded to a degree ranging from 0.5% in the early 1990s to between 0.03% and 0.05% in 2002 and 2003. Some 80% of all the loans examined, relating to many clients, were found to have this loading.” So the [alleged] fraud was systemic, not sporadic.


The Concealment
And it was actively concealed from the clients: “The statements which clients received never showed the breakdown of the base rate and the DIBOR 3-month rate plus a margin, which had been agreed by loan agreements, plus the reserve asset cost, RAC, if and when it applied.” Does this show an intent? For one has to ask if not intent, then how could this ‘error’ or ‘omission’ be perpetuated across 80% of examined cases?


The Size
The [alleged] fraud was also on a large enough scale to makes it material. “The quantum of the loaded overcharging was in the order of 0.3%. A margin of 1.5% would comprise two elements, namely, the amount that goes to cover overheads, which is usually about 0.9% of the 1.5%, and the remainder, 0.6%, which is the profit of the bank. A loaded secret dark pool profit of 0.3% would represent one third of the overall profits, including that dark pool profit.”

The letter from Mr. Morrissey’s solicitors that Deputy Mathews cites states the following: “Bankcheck has advised Mr. Morrissey that, in total, approximately EUR1 billion has been overcharged by you, the Special Liquidators, Nama, private equity and institutional buyers of former IBRC loans, IBRC and its predecessors. This is very material sum and represents a most material proportion of the bank’s declared profits over the past 25 years. You have been made aware of this on several occasions.” Note: “you” references in the above quote joint special liquidators of IBRC. And further note Nama mentioning in the above.

Boom! Remember the case against the Anglo directors that alleges wrongdoing relating to manipulations of the company accounts by means of loans and interbank deposits? Well, that is chips compared to the juicy chunk of meat contained in the above statements: thanks to over-billing of the customers, Anglo might have been over-inflating its margin by a third! Year, after year, after year. 

And, even more importantly, this information was known and is known to the current authorities and liquidators. Who did nothing with it.

Should former shareholders, current investors in ex-IBRC debt, former borrowers from Anglo, and possibly even auditors who were not given pertinent information by the Anglo and IBRC call in the legals now, the hit will be on the state.

Deputy Mathews went on: “That means the market valuation of Anglo Irish Bank in the 14 years up to 2002 when this was going on was overstated by one third. If it had been discovered by proper auditing the market would react with a collapse, …of at least one third of the value of the bank and this would affect the shareholders, creditors and depositors. That would happen irrespective of whether there was an international credit bust and a freeze of credit.


Systemic Failure that Continues Today
This has been brought to the attention of the NTMA, NAMA and others but it has been ignored to date. I have the evidence here and it is shocking.” Let us stress the fact that Irish authorities were and are aware of this.
  • An Irish court ruled on the matter in favour of Mr. Morrissey.
  • Mr Morrissey notified this to the bank.
  • Mr. Morrissey also notified this to Nama and the Department of Finance in early January 2015. It was notified to the Central Bank in late January 2015, and to the Minister for Finance in early March 2015, and subsequently again to the Central Bank in early March 2015. And the case is being ignored. Per Mr. Morrissey, he received no reply to his notifications from any official body.
  • Per Mr. Morrissey letter cited by deputy Mathews today, Mr. Morrissey notified the then Chairman of IBRC, Mr. Alan Dukes of overcharging as far back as in mid-January 2013. Simultaneously, he notified of the same matter the Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator. 

Mr Morrissey has been ignored since then, according to the record set forth by his solicitors.

It gets worse. Recall that the liquidation of IBRC was undertaken under the procedure that all claims against IBRC were to be notified before the end of 1Q 2015. And again, the notifications in the case of Mr. Morrissey were filed on time. We are at the end of 2Q 2015 and he received no response on these notifications. So the deadline established by the IBRC liquidation procedures has now expired. And the IBRC and by extension the State have not replied to Mr. Morrissey before the expiration of that deadline, effectively undermining the very process of liquidation they themselves set out.
Is this a collusive behaviour? In economics, such actions would be viewed as potentially collusive: all parties responsible and empowered knew, none responded, the wrong remains unaddressed.


The Legal Bits
Mr Morrissey solicitors letter cited by Deputy Mathews has this to say on the matter: “It appears numerous illegalities have been carried out by Anglo Irish Bank and its successors over these 25 years [from 1990 through today]. You, Mr. Wallace, have acknowledged under oath in the US Court proceedings the overcharging of interest by the bank. As the overcharging has continued under your watch, you are jointly and severally liable for same, together with the Minister and Department of Finance, the Central Bank of Ireland and the Financial Regulator.

And per official behaviour in response to the evidence presented: “we most strongly object to this glib attempt to absolve yourselves from responsibility and liability both for historic and current interest overcharging, or the consequences thereof, including the sustained misstatement of the bank’s publicly released annual accounts since 1990.”


The IBRC Inquiry
Deputy Mathews spoke in the context of the upcoming IBRC inquiry. But what he said is more important than an inquiry itself. Here is why. The inquiry is supposed to provide and independent and objective view of alleged, potential, possible wrongdoing at the IBRC. Deputy Mathews statement shows that in an actual, tangible, established and courts-confirmed case of misdeeds by the Anglo and IBRC, the State is unwilling to do anything to address these misdeeds. Thus, one has to ask a simple question: what’s the point of an inquiry into alleged wrongdoings, when actual wrongdoings are not being dealt with.

Now, take a trip through theory. An inquiry can come back with two possible outcomes: One: nothing found. Two: something worng is identified. In outcome One, under the above revelations about the Anglo overcharging case, one can be pretty certain that no one will believe the inquiry findings. There is no trust in our systems, there is no trust in our processes. No matter how well the inquiry works, its findings, were they to deliver inconclusive verdict, will always be subject to mistrust. In outcome Two, nothing will happen. Just as nothing is happening in the overcharging case. The outcome will be ignored. And so the inquiry, given the context of the cases such as cited by Deputy Mathews is hardly an exercise in building trust. For all its possible merits in design and execution, it is more likely going to be an exercise in further chipping at the little trust still left in this system.


Other Players in the Penalty Box
Deputy Mathews quotes from the letter from the Black solicitors, “following the John Morrissey case:It appears numerous illegalities have been carried out by Anglo Irish Bank and its successors over these 25 years. You, Mr. [Kieran] Wallace, have acknowledged under oath in US Court proceedings the overcharging of interest by the bank. As the overcharging has continued under your watch, you are jointly and severally liable for same, together with the Minister and Department of Finance, the Central Bank of Ireland and the Financial Regulator.””

But remember, there are other players beyond Mr. Morrissey who might want to ask few questions from the Government now that the word is getting out. As Deputy Mathews notes: “This is serious stuff. There are loans that are being operationally processed by the originators of those loans. Now those loans are owned by third parties, including hedge funds, and they are calculating interest on an unlawful basis, even though it has been brought to their attention. This is shocking.

Yes, we have on the line now:
  1.  Borrowers who were [potentially] defrauded of billions in false charges;
  2.  Investors in Anglo shares who were potentially defrauded by over-valuations of the bank;
  3. Investors in distressed loans purchased off Anglo-IBRC who are holding hot paper with [potential] fraud written all over it – the loans of the borrowers potentially defrauded;
  4. Potentially, the auditors of Anglo/IBRC who were possibly misled by non-disclosure of overcharging;
  5. And on top of all of them are the underwriters of the IBRC liquidation: taxpayers, who are facing huge bills for this.


And Another Bombshell
Deputy Mathews did not end just there. 

Here is another bombshell that exploded loud and clear in the Dail today, even through the repeated interruptions: “There is other evidence that NAMA knowingly----- allowed the information memorandum ----- -----for the Chicago Spire ----- to be negligently misleading, which has resulted in unnecessary huge losses for both the Irish people and the developer. I have the evidence for that.” That’s right – you’ve read it here. There are now allegations that Nama – not subject to the inquiry – has ‘mislead’ the markets participants to the tune of [potentially] hundreds of millions on just one, repeat, just one, asset sale.


Conclusion

These are mind-blowing revelations that expose more than just a systemic fraud [potentially] being perpetrated by a rogue bank. These are the revelations that show the current system wanting in respect of acting on the established legal case judgement in addressing the systemic [potential] fraud. And the worst bit is that even that is a tip of an iceberg, for Deputy Mathews statement about potential misrepresentation of the Chicago Spire case by Nama opens up the EUR77 billion can of worms over the Grand Canal. In this context, the current planned inquiry into 2009-2013 IBRC dealings is nothing more than a fig leaf of fake decorum on a rotten corpse of the Irish Solution to an Irish Crisis.


Still feel like the IBRC inquiry over 2009-2013 deals is going to be enough? Or should we not start systemically reviewing all post-crisis dealings and pre-crisis wrong still unaddressed by all agencies involved?

Sunday, July 13, 2014

13/7/2014: A Miracle of Reformed Banks Operating Costs Performance


We are all familiar with the fact that Irish banks are aggressively deleveraging and beefing up their profit margins. This much has been set out in regulatory and policy provisions (e.g. PCARs) and lauded by the Irish policymakers as a sign of improvements in the banking sector. Alas, the same cannot be said about operating costs in Irish banks. This metric, in fact, has not been given much attention in Irish media and by Irish politicians. So in their place, here's the latest from the IMF (special note on Spain published this week):

Wait... what?! Irish banks cost-to-income ratio is hanging around 80%, well ahead of all other 'peripherals'. Is the Irish economy (borrowers) sustaining excessive costs and employment levels in Irish banks? Why, yes, it appears so... 

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

13/5/2014: No, Johnny the Foreigner didn't do it... our own Government did...


Ah and so it rolls, Irish national media obsession with who (from abroad) pushed (presumably unwilling) Irish Government (so deeply concerned with national wellbeing) to guarantee bondholders (presumably the elderly investors from pension funds and teachers, nurses and fire(wo)men) back in September 2008 (because, you know, the Government did not beat the 'Great Irish banks Inviolable drum for the good part of 2008).

The latests instalment is on the role of Timothy Geihtner (based on his book) and it is available here: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/timothy-geithner-keeps-it-short-when-it-comes-to-haircuts-1.1792498.

So we know the drill:

  1. IMF called for haircuts. Well, I am not so sure. IMF does include haircuts in some of its 'rescues' and it is a part of the tool kit. But IMF never played an active part in Ireland or for that matter in the euro area. Just compare and contrast the Fund manhandling of Hungary against its waffling on in Greece. My internal IMF sources told me that staff was surprised Ireland did not burn the bondholders the way Iceland did. But then again, one's dismay is not Fund's advice, and Fund's advice is not Fund's order (oh, and IMF does issue 'orders').
  2. ECB barked at the idea of haircuts. Again I am not so sure. We do know ECB opposed them, but that is not a reason not to try them, is it? The argument goes that if Ireland were to go against ECB's will, the skye would fall onto us and the moon will no longer exert its tidal push and pull force on the Irish sea, making the entire island uninhabitable. Truth is, we have no idea what ECB would/could have done. Stop funding of Irish banks? Lots of good that funding did to us, I'd say - apparently even with ECB lending we had to bankrupt the nation to mummify the zombies (you wouldn't call this a rescue operation, since our banks are still zombies five and a half years into the mess).
  3. EU balked at the idea. Which means what? Olli Rehn had hiccups for breakfast? Both EU and ECB were, allegedly, powerless midgets incapable of stopping the spread of contagion from the inter-galactically important Irish banks (if they were just simple banks, why all the huff about their systemic importance) and thus needed Irish people to bite the missile (you would hardly call a guarantee the size of 2.5 times the nation's GDP a bullet) for them. So who exactly held the trump cards? 
  4. US and UK went apoplectic (although as we now know, Geithner did not oppose haircuts in principle, though he was against their timing). I must confess, I noticed no such reaction from Treasury and BofE officials I encountered in briefings around the time of the Guarantee and there after.
  5. Irish Government reluctantly, tragically, with tears in their eyes, was forced to introduce a guarantee of all liabilities. 


Now, just for nanosecond give this a thought: the Irish Government, that spent a good part of 9 months prior to the Guarantee staunchly defending the banks and since around July of 2008 - covering up their repeated violations of regulatory requirements (liquidity ratios etc), the same Government that apparently had no desire to know what was going on in the banks shares support schemes and didn't give a damn about abuse of derivative instruments to prop up the banks valuations, the said Government that had lost no sleep over the silencing of whistleblowers pointing to systemic problems in the banks… that Government today is being painted as having been 'bounced' into the Guarantee and subsequently the Troika bailout?..

Are we serious? Let's take a hard look into the mirror. The Guarantee was an act of the Irish Government to protect and secure Irish banks connected to the Irish elite's interests. Full stop. That it rescued a bunch of unsavoury bond holders and investment funds was a cherry on the proverbial cake, not the main spoiler of the 'benevolent Government' intentions.

That we did not exercise a sovereign right to, in a national emergency, impose losses on whoever we wish to impose them is not a corollary - it is a direct evidence of intent to rescue the banks at any cost to the nation. This is further collaborated by the fact that following the guarantee, the Irish Government (not the ECB or US Treasury or the EU Commission) sat back and did absolutely nothing to impose any terms and conditions onto the banks. It is evidence by the fact when our Government at the time was forced to start doing something about reforming the banks, it went about it in the following order:

  • First, losses were imposed on borrowers. Borrowers who are still (after numerous 'powder over the gaping wound' reforms of insolvency and bankruptcy codes) being milked by the banks to the loud approval from the Central Bank for every penny they might have or will have in the future.
  • Second, banks were given token targets on governance reforms (changes of boards, senior executive ranks, salaries caps etc). The banks blew past these like a boy racer blows past the '30 km/h' speed sign.
  • Third, the State created Nama which underpaid for the banks assets in order to secure brighter future for itself and its consultants and vulture funds (the latter now expect returns of 20% per annum and more on the assets they are buying from Nama, which Nama claims to be selling at a profit).
  • Fourth, more cash was injected into the banks to cover the hole blown in them by Nama. Cash was taken off the same taxpayers, many of who are the said borrowers being pursued by the banks with the blessing of the State.
  • Fifth, the banks were subsidised and protected from any competition - and still remain such: we have a massive penned up demand for credit (allegedly from top-quality SMEs and corporates and households with healthy balancesheets that everyone - from IBEC to myhome.ie claims exist all over Ireland) and we have rising lending margins, and yet we have not a single foreign bank coming into the country or expanding its operations (beyond PR releases) here. Why?


Do tell me that anything in the above suggests that the past Government shed a single non-crocodile tear in guaranteeing the banks? I simply can't believe that. It does not correspond to the facts at hand.

So to tidy things up: let's continue digging for the evidence that some Johnny the Foreigner 'bounced' Ireland into the Guarantee and the bailout and the rest of the mess we are in. Let's even keep digging for the evidence that the Martians are responsible for the original mishap of two Luas lines not being connected to each other.

But let's also remember - as a sovereign State, Irish State had choices. It made them. It made them to suit all of the objectives of supporting the banks that were consistently and persistently pursued by the State prior to the Guarantee. Subsequent to the Guarantee, Irish Government officially and repeatedly stated that it will provide all and any support needed by the banks, unconditionally, unreservedly and unceremoniously. Whatever Johnny the Foreigner did or did not do in such circumstances is secondary - interesting, important, intriguing, but still secondary. Primary is the fact that we were flushed down the proverbial banks sewer by our own.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

3/4/2014: Learning from the Irish Experience – A Clinical Case Study in Banking Failure


Our new paper on the future of banking based on Irish experience and lessons from the crisis:

Lucey, Brian M. and Larkin, Charles James and Gurdgiev, Constantin,

Learning from the Irish Experience – A Clinical Case Study in Banking Failure (September 23, 2013).

Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2329815

Abstract:  
 
We present a review of the Irish banking collapse, detailing its origins in a confluence of events. We suggest that the very concentrated nature of the Irish banking sector which will emerge from the policy decisions taken as a consequence of the collapse runs a risk of a second crisis. We survey the literature on size and efficiency and suggest some alternative policy approaches.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

8/3/2014: Morgan Kelly on the Next Incoming Train...


Superb as he always is, Professor Morgan Kelly gives a public lecture on the state of Irish economy (poor), the evolution of the crisis (currently at a temporary stabilisation), recovery (superficial) and what is coming up (ugly)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCofepdUzE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Morgan delivers in his usual - engaging - manner.

I must say that I do not necessarily agree with all of this, but that is not the point for this post...

Saturday, February 8, 2014

8/2/2014: Irish Mortgages Crisis: More of a crisis, less of a solution


This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times column from January 19, 2014.



With Dublin property prices and rental rates on the rise optimism about bricks and mortar is gradually re-infecting our living rooms and feeding through to the government and banks' expectations concerning the mortgages arrears.

The good news is that, per latest data, there has been a decline in the arrears reported by the Department of Finance. Across the six main lenders tracked by the department, mortgages in arrears were down by 1,903 in November 2013, compared to September.

The bad news, however, is that the very same figures show that the banks continue to focus on largely cosmetic debt relief measures. In many cases such restructuring tools are potentially pushing distressed borrowers deeper into debt. The fact that Official Ireland lauds such measures as 'permanent' also indicates a lack of serious consideration of the risks faced by the distressed borrowers in the future.


Let's take a look at the latest mortgages numbers, reported by the Department of Finance. To caveat the discussion below, these numbers exclude smaller, predominantly sub-prime lenders, whose borrowers are currently nearly all in arrears.

As of November 2013, there were 116,481 principal residences mortgages accounts in arrears, comprising 17 percent of all principal residences accounts. Counting in buy-to-lets, 148,727 accounts were behind on their contractual repayments, which represents 18 percent of all mortgages. The Department does not report the amounts of mortgages or actual cumulated arrears involved, but based on the data from the Central Bank of Ireland, at the end of Q3 2013, mortgages in arrears amounted to 26 percent of all housing loans.

Of the above, 20,325 principal residences mortgages in arrears over 90 days have been restructured representing just over a quarter of all arrears in this category of mortgages. This number is only 1,812 higher than in September 2013, and is down 89 on August 2013.

We do not know what exactly happened to the mortgages that were reclassified as no longer in arrears nor restructured. The omens are not great, however. Based on the Central Bank data, around half of all previously restructured mortgages relapse into arrears. Some properties have probably gone into repossessions or were voluntarily surrendered.

This lack of clarity signals a deep state of denial by our policymakers and civil servants of the true causes and extent of the crisis. Overall, figures supplied by the Department of Finance classify mortgages into ‘permanently restructured’ and ‘temporarily restructured’. There is no methodological clarity as to what these designations mean. The data reported is not audited and the process of restructuring to-date is not being independently tested by anyone. A systematic registry of various solutions applied by the banks simply does not exist and no one can see the models used in structuring these solutions and their underlying assumptions. The fog of secrecy surrounding mortgages arrears resolution process is thick.

Everyone involved in the process of mortgages arrears resolution knows that the real problem faced by distressed borrowers is the level of debt they carry. But restructuring data reported by the Department of Finance tells us nothing about total debt levels of the households before and after restructuring. Adding insult to the injury, our data excludes unsecured debt – a major barrier to mortgages sustainability and a huge obstacle to banks offering borrowers forbearance. No secured lender can be expected to agree a debt reduction plan for a mortgage, when unsecured lenders are expecting to be made whole.

The official data also separates principal residences from buy-to-lets, despite the fact that a large number of households with arrears on the latter also face difficulties funding the former. Are risks being shifted from one side of the household balancesheet to another?

We are living through a debt crisis of historically unprecedented proportions and yet we are still refusing to threat household debt in a holistic approach. Instead, the overarching belief in the system is that once a mortgage account is restructured, the borrower is no longer at risk. To achieve such an outcome, the bank can offer a household anything between extending temporary interest-only arrangement to offering a split mortgage.  A term extension, or arrears capitalisation, or a fixed repayments scheme in excess of interest-only repayments, or a hybrid of all of the above, is all that is officially available.

The strategy for dealing with distressed borrowers, therefore, is to roll the arrears into either a top-up to the existent mortgage or set up a future claim against the property, and forget the problem ever existed. In medical terms, the analogy is to removing a person off the hospital patients’ list, once she is transferred out of the emergency.

This treatment is problematic because it assumes that the distressed borrowers who went into the arrears will be able to service their new mortgages until full repayment. It further assumes that any future shocks to household finances and to the economy can be covered under the new arrangements.

None of these assumptions have been tested by the independent analysts. All of these assumptions can raise significant questions, when one considers what sort of arrears resolution deals are being offered by the banks.

Suppose a bank makes a mistake in its risk assessment of the proposed solution and, after years of making due payments, the household slips into financial difficulties once again. There is nothing in the system to address such a risk. The household will face the cost of the new crisis, plus the residual cost of the current one, plus the loss on all payments made between now and the moment the new crisis materialises.  In contrast, the bank faces lower cost. The officials responsible for the present system face, of course, no risks at all.

How likely is the above scenario? Per official data, 60 percent of all 'permanent' restructurings involved rolling up accrued arrears and/or stretching out repayments over longer time horizon. In other words, including interest payable, the debt levels associated with such restructurings are greater than those incurred under the original mortgage. This begs a question – how will these households deal with higher future interest rates that are likely to materialise given the longer horizons and larger life-cycle debts of their restructured mortgages? Another question worth asking is how can capitalisation of arrears address the original causes of the financial distress that has led to arrears accumulation?

At most, less than one in six of all mortgages in arrears have been ‘permanently’ restructured without risking an increase in the overall life-time debt levels. Only one in twenty five of all defaulting mortgages were modified on the basis of some risk sharing between the banks and the borrowers. The vast majority of Ireland’s distressed borrowers are expected to pay the full price of their own and bank’s errors. Instead of restoring debt sustainability to Irish households’ finances, the system appears to be aiming to provide only a temporary cash-flow relief.


The key stumbling blocks to the successful resolution of mortgages arrears are, unfortunately, the cornerstones of the personal insolvency regime reforms and of policies aimed at dealing with distressed borrowers.

These include the fact that Irish homeowners are facing the full cost of dealing with the banks without any support from the state. This stands in contrast to the UK model where these costs are usually in part or fully covered by the banks. High costs and cumbersome bureaucracy deter many homeowners from engaging with the banks and from seeking professional and independent advice in restructuring their debts. So far, only one bank, the AIB Group, has voluntarily committed to helping its distressed borrowers to access independent support. The rest of the Irish banking system, including the regulators, are happy to make borrowers pay.

The pilot scheme designed by the Central Bank to deal with the problem of unsecured debt has now run its course. There is a complete silence across the official channels about its successes or failures, or about its potential renewal. Which suggests that the scheme was a flop. Meanwhile, the banks are refusing debt reductions to mortgages arrears, often citing lack of cooperation from unsecured lenders. We will never know how many of the 59,620 ‘permanently’ restructured borrowers could have availed of some debt relief but were failed by the dysfunctional system.

More ominously, we have effectively no regulation over the resolution schemes advanced by various banks. For example, through November 2013, there were 6,090 split mortgages solutions extended. Vast majority of these involve lower cost of borrowing offset by a delay in debt claim realisation. In contrast, one of the major banks currently is in the process of developing a split mortgage product that will offer borrowers an option of converting the capitalised portion of the split back into normal mortgage at some point in the future. In exchange, the borrowers will be offered a sizeable debt write-off for a portion of their mortgage.  Such a product is vastly superior to all other split mortgage arrangements in place, but it will be treated as identical to them in future reports.

The latest data on mortgage arrears resolutions clearly shows that the Irish State is unwilling to forgive those who fell into debt distress under the hardship of the Great Recession.  Instead of helping families to overcome the debt problem, our system is designed to help the debt problem to gain control over the debtor.



Box-out:

With the first issue of post-Troika Irish bonds safely away, it is time to reflect on the NTMA's opening gambit in the markets. Whatever one might say about the agency, its timing of this month's sale was impeccable. In the global markets, investment funds have been migrating out of fixed income (bond markets) and into equity markets pretty much throughout most of 2013. This trend is now accelerating. Usual bulk buyers of sovereign bonds are also starting to slow their appetite. Sovereign Wealth Funds, especially those located in Asia and the BRICS, are facing slowing domestic economic activity, reduced funding inflows from their exchequers and increased political pressures to reinvest domestically. Euro area banks, other large buyers of government bonds, are continuing to repay ECB-borrowed funds. They too are unlikely to demand significant amounts of Government bonds. And, looming on the horizon, large euro area issuers are about to swamp the market with fresh supply. Spain and Italy alone are planning to sell some EUR712 billion worth of new bonds to fund maturing debt and new deficits. All of this suggests that both supply and demand pressures later in 2014 can make it tougher for smaller euro area countries to tap the markets. Which makes NTMA's this month's timing so much wiser.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

15/1/2014: 2008 Guarantee was "fully justifiable": J-C. Trichet


Yesterday, the former head of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, told the EU Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the Irish government had been correct to guarantee the banks in September 2008.

The guarantee, which ended up imposing onto the Irish taxpayers costs of EUR64bn or more (depending on how one calculates the full extent of banking measures applied, and excluding the payments on the Guarantee by the banks) was a "fully justifiable position given the very difficult circumstances [the Irish government] faced".

However, per Mr Trichet, Ireland has issued the Guarantee all on its own, based on the same advice as given to other countries. "The message from the (European) Central Bank to Dublin was the same as the message from the Central Bank to Germany, to Belgium, to France, and we were at the heat of the crisis saying clearly, beware. We know what happens after we had Lehman Brothers."

In fairness to Trichet, as he claimed yesterday, the ECB did warn on numerous occasions that prior to the crisis, there was a growing cost competitiveness gap across the euro area and that fiscal performance was insufficient for a number of countries in the region.

More on the story is here: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/europe/ireland-s-bank-guarantee-was-justifiable-claims-trichet-1.1655216

One way or the other, the Trichet's testimony now opens up room for the Government to put into public domain the content of the controversial letters that Trichet wrote to Minister Lenihan back in 2010 as well as full correspondence between ECB and Irish authorities back in 2008. Let's see what advice was exactly given to Ireland by the ECB on the Guarantee and subsequently.


Update: H/T to Seamus Coffey's: the letters that are yet to be released relate to 2010 exchanges between Mr Trichet and Brian Lenihan.

However, we still do not know as to what exact advice was given to Mr Lenihan by Mr Trichet and the ECB before the Guarantee of 2008. As far as I am aware, back in September 2008 there was no official ECB position on any government issuing guarantees to cover the liabilities in their banking sector. Even after Ireland issued its guarantee, there was no such position publicly formulated. In fact, Irish Government notified the ECB, the Ecofin and the Eurogroup of its decision to guarantee the banks liabilities ex-post issuing the guarantee. It did so at the same time as making the Guarantee public. The closest we know of that the Government came to potentially receiving any wisdom from the ECB of the Guarantee could have been during a phone call between Mr Trichet and Minister Lenihan that took place a week before the Guarantee issuance. As far as I am aware, we do not know the exact contents of this conversation.


Friday, January 3, 2014

3/1/2013: Irish Private Sector Credit: November 2013


Central Bank of Ireland published series of data today covering deposits and credit in Irish banking system through November 2013. Here are the highlights.

Overall, household credit outstanding at the end of November 2013 stood at EUR107.763 billion, down EUR1.354 billion on October 2013 and up EUR2.547 billion on November 2012. Compared to November 2011, outstanding credit to Irish households is down EUR3.069 billion (-2.77%). On a more stable, 3mo average basis, Q4 2013 average credit outstanding was EUR2.886 billion ahead of the same period in 2012.

Monthly decline in overall credit supplied to Irish households can be broken down into a decline of EUR1.226 billion in loans for house purchase, EUR119 million decline in consumer credit and EUR9 million decline in other loans. In other words, monthly decline was broad across all three categories of household credit.

Year on year, credit to households fell EUR1.336 billion for consumer credit, and is down EUR110 million for credit extended via other loans. There was a rise of EUR4.680 million for loans for house purchase. However, this increase itself is fully accounted for by a massive EUR6.233 billion jump in credit for house purchase extended in just one month: December 2012. Since December 2012, however, credit remained slightly lower, averaging EUR 83.978 billion over 11 months of 2013 as compared to EUR84.973 billion back in December 2012.

In summary: house purchase loans are slightly down over the 12 months from December 2012 through November 2013, Consumer credit loans are down over the same period, and other loans are also down. In all three cases, declines were moderate, implying that over December 2012-November 2013, overall credit to Irish households declined from EUR111.076 billion to EUR107.763 billion.

Compared to H1 2008:

  • Household credit overall was more than 30% down in November 2013 compared to H1 2008 average;
  • Credit for house purchases was more than 32% down in November 2013 compared to H1 2008 average;
  • Consumer credit was more than 39% down in November 2013 compared to H1 2008 average;
  • Other loans were 139% up in November 2013 compared to H1 2008 average.


Non-financial corporations total credit outstanding in November 2013 stood at EUR81.129 billion, down EUR143 million on October 2013 and down EUR3.676 billion on November 2012. Q4 average stock of credit to non-financial companies in Ireland declined in Q4 2013 y/y by some EUR3.734 billion (-4.38%). Compared to November 2011, credit to NFCs in Ireland is down EUR7.225 billion (-8.18%). More than half of this drop took place over the last 12 months.

In summary: credit to NFCs extended in the Irish system is down y/y in November and over Q4 2013 overall and the rate of decline did not decline over the last 12 months, compared to previous 12 months.

Compared to H1 2008:

  • Credit to NFCs overall was more than 50% down in November 2013 compared to H1 2008 average.




Next post will cover deposits and loan/deposit ratios.

Friday, December 20, 2013

20/12/2013: Are the bondholders' bailouts off the table now?


From late 2008 on through today, myself (including on this blog) and a small number of other economists and analysts have maintained a very clear line that burning of Anglo and INBS bondholders would have been a preferred option for Ireland.

Not to speak for others, I still maintain that writing off the Government bonds held by the ECB is the only course of action open to us today and that it should be pursued.

The ex-IMF's official statements yesterday concerning the preference for burning senior unsecured bondholders in Anglo and INBS, and the claim that this option is no longer viable for Ireland,  are neither new, nor material. For three reasons:

  1. Anglo and INBS bondholders should have been bailed-in in full regardless of their status. Those who held secured bonds should have been bailed-in via equity swaps after the full bailing-in of unsecured bondholders. The action would have saved Irish taxpayers tens of billions, not just billions as the ex-IMF-er claims.
  2. Other banks: AIB and ptsb bondholders should have bailed-in as well.
  3. ECB objections to such a course of action were exceptionally robust, but Ireland should have pursued more aggressive stance with respect to the ECB. Not quite a full exit, but possibly a combination of a threat, plus a concerted push alongside other 'peripheral' countries in the European structures to force ECB engagement.
  4. It is never too late to do the right thing: the debts are still there, only in a different form. Anglo-INBS debts are now held by the Central Bank in the form of sovereign bonds, converted into the latter by the acts of the current Government. These bonds should not be repaid. There are many ways in which such non-repayment can be structured, including with cooperation of the ECB and European officials. One example would be converting the bonds into perpetual zero coupon bonds.

In other words, late admission by the ex-IMF employee of the wrongs, backed by the claim that 'nothing more can be done' are not good enough. We need real corrective action from the EU.

Report on actual statement is here: http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/imf-ireland-could-have-saved-billions-by-burning-anglo-bondholders-617688.html

Update: H/T to @aidanodr for the following:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/eu-chief-barroso-no-backdated-bank-debt-deal-for-ireland-29854504.html

This pretty much sums up the EU Commission's stance on the 'seismic' banks deal 'negotiated' by the Irish Government in June 2012. It is also wrong, offensive and belligerent. Mr Barroso's comments are simply economically illiterate. Assume Ireland did cause the euro area crisis. Can anyone (Mr Barroso?) explain how the euro can be deemed sustainable if it can be destabilised by a crisis in one of the smallest nations members of the union? Alternatively, imagine the US Dollar being as vulnerable to a banking crisis in New Hampshire in a way that euro (per Mr Barroso's claims) was allegedly vulnerable to the Irish crisis?

Thursday, December 12, 2013

12/12/2013: Measuring the Mortgages Crisis in Ireland


As the readers of this blog would know, I rarely comment on articles in Irish press, and rarer yet on articles in the Irish Times. So here is a rare occasion, not because of the article itself, but because of what it suggests about our national treatment of statistics.

Let's start from the top. The New York Times published an article on Irish crisis today. Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/business/international/as-bailout-chapter-closes-hardships-linger-for-irish.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&rref=business&hpw&pagewanted=all

Irish Times - in some ways correctly took the New York Times article to task: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/are-we-really-reduced-to-shooting-pigeons-for-food-1.1625588

Let me take up one point in the two articles. Original version of the NYT article cited - quoting from the IT response - that "most startling is the assertion that two-thirds of homeowners have not paid their mortgage “on time for the last two years”".

IT correctly points that this is not true, saying that "The bank’s most recent arrears figures suggest 18.5 per cent of mortgage holders are in arrears of some sort or other.
They also indicate that 22 per cent of those currently in arrears are behind in their payments for at least two years or more."

The NYT published correction to their original claim. Story ends there.

But from the point of view of reality, it does not. This is pivotal to our narrative about the crisis.

Mortgages arrears have many meanings in the economy. But in the social context and in relation to mapping out the extent of the crisis here's what matters: Mortgages arrears are a signifier of the extent of the crisis. In this, they are neither the only indictor, nor are they a relative indicator. Let me explain.
  1. Assume we want to identify the extent of the crisis as it impacted the households holdings of property.
  2. Assume we have official data to do so only.
From (1) and (2), identifying the crisis extent is simple and yet hard. 

Take an analogy of identifying the crisis in the macroeconomy. That would be GDP. Or rather, the size of the crisis = the gap between the GDP at pre-crisis peak to GDP at crisis-period trough. One thing that does not matter to this analysis is where the GDP is today (post-trough). Should in the future the GDP hit a new trough and should the drivers for this be consistent with the drivers for the original crisis, then that new trough becomes the crisis metric. Should GDP recover to pre-crisis highs (as it will one day), the magnitude of the crisis will not be zero, it will still be GDP pre-crisis less GDP at trough.

Variants on the above are possible by looking at various GDP metrics and/or pre-crisis and trough metrics (trend, potential etc). But the essence of analysis is the same: GDP pre-crisis - GDP at trough = Crisis Impact.

Now, back to the original issue: How shall be measure the impact of the crisis when it comes to mortgages?

The IT comments can suggest (and usually the media obliges to take this as given) that Arrears Current = Crisis Impact. But are they?

My view is that they are not. Let's compute the total impact:
  1. Peak of arrears (we are yet to reach that) = part of impact
  2. Restructured mortgages that are not in arrears = part of impact for two reasons: (a) they face high probability of going back into arrears (just under 50:50 chance currently and declining slowly); and (b) restructured mortgages are no longer the original pre-crisis mortgages, so the mere fact of restructuring them is a sign of the crisis impact
  3. Repossessed homes = direct impact; and
  4. Voluntary surrenders = direct impact.
What do we know from official sources: Total mortgages outstanding: 915,746 per CBofI (composed of 768,136 principal residences-linked mortgages and 147,610 BTLs), of these:
  1. Total mortgages in arrears: 181,946 per CBofI (composed of 141,520 principle residences and 40,426 BTLs)
  2. Restructured, not in arrears: 56,186 (composed of 43,034 principal residences and 13,152 BTLs)
  3. Repossessed homes - we have no numbers for aggregates repossessed - neither the CBofI, nor Department of Finance report these on any regular basis. But in Q3 2013 we had 1,566 properties in repossession (1,050 residences and 516 BTLs). These are properties held in possession by the banks. We do not know how many they have sold since the beginning of the crisis.
  4. Voluntary surrenders - we have no data on these from any official source, but the properties that are surrendered and are still in the possession of the banks are aggregated into (3) above.
So, with incomplete information on (3) and (4), to-date, the extent of the crisis is for all types of properties:

181,946 in arrears + 56,186 restructured, not in arrears + 1,566 repossessed and surrendered = 239,698 accounts or, ca 26% of all accounts outstanding.

And the number is growing...

This is not 2/3rds as claimed originally in the NYT, not even 1/3rd, and it is certainly not the percentage of mortgages in trouble over 2 years... and the above 26% include BTLs too... But the true extent of the crisis is that 26 out of 100 mortgages in the country have been directly impacted by it. And the crisis has not peaked, yet.

But here's what this tells us about our psychology when it comes to measuring the extent of the crisis: we commonly interpret arrears alone (and often only arrears in excess of 90 days) as the metric of the crisis. This is an error - an error based on the implicit anchoring of the idea of the crisis to the news and thus, to relative position in time. This is simply wrong. The crisis of WW2 is measured by the absolute level of destruction wrecked at the peak, cumulatively, not by where the losses were in 1955 or in 1948.


Actually, should you be interested, I track the evolution of the above metric (I call it mortgages in default, defaulted or at risk of default) in my regular posts on CBofI quarterly data. The latest was provided here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/11/28112013-irish-mortgages-arrears-q3-2013.html.

And for the conclusion: I recall in 2007 CEO of AIB at the time stating in a meeting with analysts that "Irish people do not default on mortgages. They never do." I replied: "Never is a very precise term. Is there any uncertainty around this claim?" and he retorted: "None." Back to that 26% figure, then?..