APRIL 2014
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IBOA THE FINANCE UNION
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In this issue… LOOSE CHANGE 5-13 Executive exodus at Danske Bank.................9 Wind-down of IBRC nears completion...... 10 Outlook for Permanent TSB improves....... 10 Royal third force?............................................. 11 Santander UK fined......................................... 11 Bonus culture in British banking................. 12 McEwan’s multiple........................................... 13 Archie faces yet another bonus cut............ 13 Meanwhile back on the frontline…........... 13
Anglo Trial.............................................................5 Certus plans 225 job losses..............................5 Bank of Ireland: Onwards and upwards.......6 BOI in Chinese take-away.................................6 AIB: Fifty shades of black..................................7 AIB consultants’ bill tops €100m....................7 Mixed results for RBS and Ulster ....................8 RBS banks fall short in ethical test.................8 Goodbody acquires Danske business..........9
CURRENT ACCOUNTS 14-19 Central Bank launches new whistleblower hotline................................................................. 14 Refunds of €67.4m ordered for misselling of PPI................................................................... 14 New Central Bank banking supervisor...... 14 Million dollar mark-ups at State Street UK............................................................ 15
Bond villains fined at Santander................. 15 More LIBOR litigation..................................... 15 Out of sight – out of mind: outsourcing compliance........................................................ 17 Banking online: Are branches on the way out?.......................................................18-19
GOING CONCERNS 20-25 Special Delegate Conference: Vision 2020 project in sharp focus.............. 20 Political engagement..................................... 21 Pay, rewards back on talks agenda............. 22 Executive members elected......................... 22 The IT crowd...................................................... 23 IBOA Group Schemes ..............................24-25
CHAPTERS BOOKSTORE Spectrum is published by IBOA – The Finance Union, IBOA House, Stephen Street Upper, Dublin 8 and 29, Malone Road, Belfast. BT9 6RU. Telephone: 00353-1-4755908 and 0044-28-90200130 info@iboa.ie www.iboa.ie www.iboa.org.uk General Secretary: Larry Broderick Honorary Secretary: Tommy Kennedy Communications Manager: Séamas Sheils Advertising enquiries to Anna O’Doherty or Louise O’Donnell in IBOA House. Spectrum is printed on recycled paper and wrapped for posting in oxy-degradable polythene at W. & G. Baird, Antrim, Northern Ireland.
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In this issue… BANK NOTES 26-31 AIB engagement.............................................. 26 Talks begin at Ulster Bank............................. 27 Rewards, roles and career paths under negotiation at Bank of Ireland..................... 28 Bank of Ireland proposes to outsource IT work to Accenture....................................... 28 Hopes rise for fairer deal for IBRC workers.............................................................. 29 Danske staff back pay deal........................... 31 Danske unions survey employee satisfaction........................................................ 32
FOREIGN EXCHANGE/LIFE COVER 32-37 Another Day Another Scandal!.................... 32
The case against Qatar................................... 35
Poor in the USA: One third of bank
Historic milestone in Brazil............................ 35
tellers live in poverty ...................................... 33
Safe jobs save lives.......................................... 36
Rana Plaza collapse – one year later........... 34
Workers’ Memorial Day.................................. 36 IBOA’s Safety, Health, Welfare and Security Committee........................................ 36 Dealing with bereaved work colleagues: new resource pack........................................... 37
FIXED INTEREST 38-47 Cinematique: Frankly Speaking.................. 39 Book Worm: Behan in the USA, Embracing the Ordinary and Douglass In Ireland............... 40 Art for Art’s Sake: Brick’n’mix........................ 41 Prize crossword................................................ 42 Picture board.................................................... 43 Sudoku................................................................ 43 Game Time with George Hamilton............. 44 Margin Call with Stephen Malone.............. 46
Changes in Banking Culture SURVEY OF BANK WORKERS
Since the start of the economic downturn, the financial services industry has received a lot of negative criticism. A research team from the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick is conducting research on the perceptions and attitudes of employees. If you are employed in the industry at present – whether you’re happy and thriving at work, barely coping or somewhere in between – they’d like to hear from you. Your story and views are important. The questionnaire – which can be accessed online at https:// kemmy.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/SID=SV_5o36aIg1F6RDovX – will take
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about 15 minutes. This is an anonymous survey and participation is voluntary. Research ethics approval has been granted by the Kemmy Business School Research Ethics Committee. For more information on the study or details of the findings, please contact jill.pearson@ul.ie. The Financial Services Research Team Dr. Michelle Hammond (Course Director, MSc in Work and Organisational Psychology/Behaviour), Jill Pearson (Team Leader and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology/Behaviour) Helen Cleary and Roisin Monaghan (MSc Candidate in Work and Organisational Behaviour).
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courting disaster?
Certus plans 225 job losses
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oan management gtoup, Certus is reported to be seeking 225 redundancies among its 1,000 employees.
The “Anglo 3”: Pat Whelan, Seán FitzPatrick and William McAteer (Photos: Photocall-Ireland)
Judgement at hand Anglo trial enters final stages
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s we go to press, the jury in the trial of three former directors of Anglo Irish Bank is considering its verdict in the case which has lasted over ten weeks in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Seán FitzPatrick, William McAteer and Pat Whelan are charged with ten counts of providing unlawful financial assistance to ten individuals, known as the Maple 10, in July 2008 to buy shares in the bank, contrary to Section 60 of the Companies Act. McAteer and Whelan are also charged with six counts of providing unlawful financial assistance to six members of the Quinn family. The three men have pleaded not guilty to all charges. The share purchase scheme was intended to unwind Seán Quinn’s shareholding in Anglo in July 2008, with ten business people borrowing €45m each from the bank to buy shares and members of the Quinn
family borrowing a further €170m to buy shares. In his charge to the jury, Judge Martin Nolan told the jurors they should leave any prejudice about bankers at the door of the jury room. Judge Nolan said they were not entitled to visit upon the accused men the financial calamity of the country. They were not entitled to use what happened after the collapse of Lehman against the accused. He said that would be “incredibly unfair” and “you cannot do that.” He said the jurors must be satisfied of the guilt of the accused men beyond a reasonable doubt before they could convict. Judge Nolan told the jurors that they had to decide if there had been lending in the case and, if there was, whether it was in “the ordinary course of business.” If it was not, they had to decide if all three men knew about the scheme and if they did know,
whether they took any steps to stop it. “You must decide if any of these three men are criminally culpable,” he said. Judge Martin Nolan told them today it did not matter whether the three accused believed the share purchase scheme was legal or illegal. “This might seem totally unfair that the belief of the defendants as to the legality or the illegality does not matter, but that is the case and I’m directing you as a matter of law. “There are a small amount of cases that people sometimes commit crimes without knowing it is a crime but that is totally irrelevant,” he said. The attitude of the financial regulator to it or his actions were also totally irrelevant, as was the involvement of investment banker’s Morgan Stanley. He told the jury they would be given a voluminous amount of exhibits to examine.
One issue in the banking crisis may be settled – but what about the many other unanswered questions?
The decision is believed to be related to the fact that Lloyds Banking Group has sold off more of the Irish interests it inherited when it was pressured into acquiring the Halifax and Bank of Scotland banking businesses. Establish in January 2011, Certus was effectively a management buy-out of Bank of Scotland’s Irish operation (BoSI) and retained a number of the bank’s former to manage down BoSI’s loan book for Lloyds. The loan portfolio has been wound down in the last three years to a little over half of its orginal face value of £27.4bn – although Certus has subsequently secured additional business from other financial institutions including AIB, Permanent TSB and IBRC. The redundancies – which are being sought on a voluntary basis for completion by September 30 – are to be the subject of negotiation with Unite the Union.
New £1 coin planned for UK
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new £1 coin is to be introduced in 2017 by the British authorities as the most secure coin in the world. The new coin – which will
have the same shape as the old 12-sided three pence piece or ‘threepenny bit’ will replace the current version which has been in circulation for over 30 years. The design of the reverse side of the coin is to be decided by a public competition. An image of the monarch’s head will appear on the obverse side, as usual.
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pillar talk
Bank of Ireland, College Green (Photo: James Horan/Photocall-Ireland)
Bank of Ireland Chief Executive, Richie Boucher (Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)
Onwards and upwards
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ank of Ireland reported a “significant” improvement in its full-year results for 2013, last month – as pre-tax losses fell from €1.5bn in 2012 to €569m in 2013 on the back of rising income and falling impairment charges. The bank made “substantial” progress in 2013, according to CEO, Richie Boucher. “Taxpayers’ support for and investment in Bank of Ireland has been rewarded and repaid. We are profitable and generating capital in 2014,” he said. The bank has been generating capital since the beginning of 2014.
With State aid now repaid, the new capital being generated will be earmarked for “de-recognising” the State’s remaining €1.3bn preference shares by 2016. The bank’s level of defaulted loans fell by €1.2bn to €17.1bn, across all major loan categories in the second half of 2013. While the volume of default mortgage arrears has continued to increase, the rate of default arrears formation has started to slow during 2013. Employee numbers at the bank fell by 761 to 11,255 in 2013 – following a reduction of over 1,200 in 2012.
BoI in Chinese take-away
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ank of Ireland has become the first Irish bank to allow business customers to make payments in Chinese yuan.
The value of Irish exports to China have risen by over 40% in recent years – from €251m in 2010 to €354m in 2012 – and is expected to reach around €600m by 2016. Around 200 Irish firms export to China, while about half that number maintain a physical presence there. The provision of this new facility should enable Irish businesses trading with China to
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mitigate the impact of currency fluctuations. “China’s share of global trade and investment continues to grow,” said Bank of Ireland’s Head of Global Customer Business, Kevin Twomey, “and with financial markets looking increasingly at events in China, we expect that the yuan will ultimately become a major currency – as important as the euro, dollar and sterling.”
State gets special 10-year bank loan B
ank of Ireland has agreed to loan part of its iconic building in Dublin’s College Green to the Irish State for ten years. It will host a Cultural and Heritage Centre to stage exhibitions and other cultural events for the public. The former Irish Houses of Parliament is now primarily used by the bank as a city centre branch. Bank of Ireland will also allow guided access to the House of Lords for visitors to the centre. The Republic’s Minister for Arts and Heritage Jimmy Deenihan, said Bank of Ireland would cover
For workplace news about Bank of Ireland, see page 26.
the costs of refurbishment of the new facility while the State will be responsible for curating the venue and running events. Architect, Edward Lovett Pearce, designed the building in the 1720s. James Gandon, famous for landmarks including the Four Courts and Custom House, added later extensions. When it is eventually open to the public, the Cultural and Heritage Centre will be accessed via the entrance to the College Green buildings on Westmoreland Street. It is envisaged that the exhibitions in the Centre will include a significant focus on the decade of centenaries involving key events in the foundation of the Irish State.
BOI subsidiary to pay £27m after UK tribunal’s tax ruling
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ne of Bank of Ireland’s UK subsidiaries, Bristol and West, has been ordered to pay £27m in Corporation Tax after a second tribunal ruling against a scheme involving derivative swaps used by the former building society to avoid paying corporation tax.
Bristol & West had transferred interest rate swaps from one group company to another for £91m, in
an attempt to take advantage of a change in the regime for taxing derivatives in the belief that any profit on such a transaction would be disregarded for tax purposes. The UK tax authorities said the assumption that the credit would disappear because one of the companies involved in the transfer was within the new regime while the other was not was incorrect and amounted to an attempt to avoid paying tax.
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Switch on in WellsSeptember Fargo plans
to cut 700 more jobs
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ells Fargo is believed to be planning an additional 700 job cuts at its mortgage division in the US. The redundancies – which follow 250 job cuts already made in January – are likely to be focused in back office operations in Minneapolis and Des Moines which deal mainly with mortgage applications.
Fifty shades of black
AIB reports improved performance
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IB’s financial position has continued to improve during 2013. Overall the bank’s losses before tax have fallen by 55% from €3.729bn in 2012 to €1.687bn in 2013.
AIB said its pre-provision operating profits rose to €445m – €769m higher than in 2012, while its total operating income rose by 34% to €1.9bn. Operating expenses fell by 16% (or €278m) to €1.470bn while staff costs declined by 18% and staff numbers fell by 15% to 11,431. The bank says it remains focused on sustainable growth and returning to profitability during this year. It also says that it is more optimistic for the outlook of both the bank and the Irish economy.
The bank said the rate of increase in arrears in Irish residential mortgages fell in the second half of last year. Its total impaired loans decreased by about €1bn. It said that 11.1% of its owneroccupier mortgages were more than 90 days in arrears at the end of December, while 24% of its buy-to-let mortgages were over 90 days in arrears. AIB said it had met its targets on the restructuring of mortgage and SME arrears, adding that the resolution of arrears was its “number one priority.” AIB CEO, David Duffy, said the results were evidence of the
For workplace news about AIB Group, see pages 24-25.
positive impact of the bank’s revised strategy on operating performance. He said that a number of the bank’s “important milestones” were reached last year and the fundamentals of AIB’s performance are now trending more positively both from an operational and economic perspective. “We are well positioned in our customer businesses, we have leading market shares across the bank’s key product lines in Ireland and we continue to invest in our franchise,” he said. “We approved over €7bn in mortgage, personal, SME and corporate lending to the Irish economy during 2013 and we are targeting €7bn-€10bn in lending approvals, per year, over the next five years,” he added.
AIB consultants’ bill tops €100m
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IB has paid over €100m to consultants since 2010. The State-owned bank paid the London operation of Price waterhouseCoopers (PwC) €100m for a series of consultancy contracts since it was appointed to advise the bank in late 2010 – before it was fully nationalised. Accountants from a specialist banking team based in PwC’s London office became increasingly involved in the management of
AIB following the appointment of the former Group Chief Operating Officer for HSBC Holdings, David Hodgkinson, as AIB’s Executive Chairman in October 2010. PwC personnel took on key executive roles in AIB in the period from November 2011 – when a number of members of the Bank’s senior management team departed, including ex-managing director, Colm O’Doherty – up to the appointment of the current Chief Executive, David Duffy, at the end of 2012.
Citi to axe 950 mortgage jobs Citi is reported to be planning to cut around 950 positions in its mortgage division, after divesting certain part of the business to the US Government-owned mortgage finance firm Fannie Mae.
Bank of America to lay off 450 mortgage staff
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ank of America (BofA) is planning to axe about 450 jobs at its mortgage operations on the West Coast after an internal review forecast a drop in new mortgage business. The bank is believed to have cut about 3,000 workers involved in making home loans in the last three months of 2013 as well as 3,000 in the legacy-assets servicing unit. In October last year, BofA announced plans to eliminate 4,000 employees at its mortgage banking division by December 2013, claiming that the division is facing sluggish demand of mortgage refinancing activities, amid growing interest rates.
JPMorgan Chase plans more mortgage job cuts
J Colm O’Doherty: Proliferation of consultants followed his departure (Photo: Photocall-Ireland)
PMorgan Chase is said to be ready to launch a new round of job cuts involving over 2,000 posts in its mortgage unit in response to slow demand for home loans. The latest cuts come on top of 13,000 to 15,000 redundancies already planned for its mortgage servicing and retail banking divisions, according to the Financial Times. With a current workforce of nearly 255,000, the bank is also said to be keen to replace its traditional big branch offices with smaller facilities known as “branches of the future,” while putting more focus on online banking.
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post script Mixed results for RBS and Ulster Bank R
BS Group made a pre-tax loss for 2013 of £8.24bn – including regulatory and redress provisions of £3.8bn – with impairments and other losses of £4.82bn related to the creation of RBS’s internal bad bank, RBS Capital Resolution (RCR).
Citizens must re-sit stress test
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OPES of a prompt sale for RBS US subsidiary, Citizens Bank, received a setback last month when it fell short in the stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve – America’s Central Bank.
Although RBS’s principal strategy is to float Citizens, starting later this year, it is reported to have been in preliminary talks with other banks including Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui about a possible trade sale. However the outcome of the stress test may have dented sentiment towards the bank, and could delay progress towards a sale until the deficiencies are addressed. RBS will submit revised capital plans for Citizens.
Excluding the cost of creating RCR, RBS Group’s operating profit was £2.5bn – down 15% from 2012; Retail & Commercial down 4% to £4bn; Markets down 58% to £638m; and Non-Core losses down 27% to £2bn. RBS’s Irish subsidiary, Ulster Bank, posted losses of almost £1.5bn in 2013 – up from £1bn in 2012 because of a one-off cost of £911m towards the creation of the RCR. However, Chief Executive, Jim Brown, said he was confident the bank would be back in profit by the end of this year.
RBS Group Chief Executive, Ross McEwan
RBS Group banks fall short in ethical test
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oyal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its NatWest and Ulster Bank subsidiaries have come next to bottom of a league table that scores Britain’s banks on their ethical policies. Barclays scored worst with only four points out of 100 in the ‘switching scorecard’, released recently by Move Your Money – a campaign that aims to get people to move their accounts from the big banks to more ethical alternatives. RBS, Nat West and Ulster Bank – part of the RBS Group – each scored seven out of 100 along with niche bank, Coutts.
RBS announces 44 branch closures in Britain R
oyal Bank of Scotland has announed that it is to close 44 branches across Britain from Scotland to the south coast of England.
Citizens Bank Chief Executive, Bruce Van Saun
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Fourteen of the branches are “the last branch in town” – even though British banks had previously pledged not to be last to pull out of local communities since the furore caused by Barclays a decade ago, when it shut down 171 branches on one day. Although RBS formalised its pledge in its “customer charter” in 2010, Britain’s advertising standards authority upheld a complaint in 2012 about RBS’s misleading promises to be the last branch in town. By 2013 the commitment had been watered down to more of an aspiration.
The three other ‘Big Five’ banks – Santander, Lloyds and HSBC – also registered scores of 25 or less. The low scores were mainly down to these banks’ roles in funding the fossil fuel industry, according to Move Your Money. Building societies score high The Move Your Money scorecard ranks over 70 UK and global banking providers across five areas – honesty, customer service, culture, supporting the economy and ethics. Top of the table is Cumberland Building Society with a score of 91 out of 100. Operating only in the North of England, the building society scored 100 for its honesty and impact on the economy and was only found deficient on executive bonuses and female representation on its board. Among the other high scoring banks are the Salvation Army-run Reliance Bank, the Coventry Building Society and the Leeds Building Society. New challenger, Metro Bank, and the Swedish-owned Handelsbanken also did well – mainly thanks to their strong focus on customer service.
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Danske cuts 250 jobs in Denmark Danske Bank has cut around 250 jobs in Denmark as part of its strategy to reduce cost by almost 1.1bn Danish krone ($180m). The job cuts are mainly in support functions, including the human resources and legal departments. Danske Bank spokesperson Kenni Leth said that the cuts were “a large step” towards reaching the Bank’s cost-reduction targets – although he would not discount the need for further lay-offs in the future.
Goodbody acquires Danske business
D
anske Bank’s custody accounts services division in the Republic of Ireland is to be sold to Goodbody Stockbrokers.
This development follows last October’s decision by Danske’s Danish parent to wind down its personal and business banking operations in the Republic. About 3,800 private clients of the bank with assets under management of €85 million are affected by the transfer.
A custody account is an electronic nominee account where non-cash assets are held in a safe and secure way.
According to media reports eight groups are believed to have tendered for the business – with Goodbody, Davy and Cantor Fitzgerald selected by the bank for a shortlist of three. Danske plans to write to customers to outline the details of the transfer process – including a welcome pack from Goodbody which will outline how Danske customers will be able to trade shares, unit trust funds and fixed-income securities online and by phone in a number of currencies. Goodbody has agreed to maintain Danske’s standard fee structure for 12 months after the transfer, with the exception of the annual
account maintenance fee which is to be reduced. Customers can also choose not to transfer their securities to Goodbody by contacting Danske Bank before April 17. The transfer of clients’ business is likely to take place in late May. Goodbody is believed to be paying a small consideration to Danske for this business, according to press reports. Previously part of AIB, Goodbody is now owned by the financial services group Fexco, based in Kerry.
For workplace news about Danske Bank, see page 29.
Executive exodus at Danske Bank
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anske Bank’s chief risk officer, Robert Endersby (right), has flagged his intention to leave the Copenhagen-based lender and return to Britain by the end of the year, marking the latest in a series of key management changes at Denmark’s biggest lender. Endersby has been head of group risk management and a member of the bank’s executive board since 2012. At least seven top managers, including Danske’s Chief Executive Officer, have either resigned or been fired since the beginning of 2012. Danske is also estimated to have lost over 100,000 customers last year. The bank replaced former CEO, Eivind Kolding with Thomas Borgen last September. A month later, Head of Treasury, Steen Blaafalk, was fired. Other departures at the bank in the past two years include Chief Operating Officer, Georg Schubiger; Head of Group Credit, Per Skovhus; Head of Markets, Henrik Normann; and Head of Corporate Finance, Anders Boending.
Bitcoins “are not money” – Danske
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itcoin, the controversial virtual currency, is not money, according to a recent briefing note from Danske Bank which notes that the currency is more like “glass beads”.
“Bitcoins are not money in a proper sense as there is no issuer behind them,” the report states. “Instead, bitcoins display the characteristics of a commodity to which users attach value. “Unlike precious metals such as gold and silver, bitcoins have no actual utility value, bearing closer resemblance to glass beads.” Danske is one of a growing number of banks to question the value of the bitcoin. In December 2013, the People’s Bank of China banned financial institutions from trading in the currency, shortly after the former president of the Dutch Central Bank said the currency’s boom was “worse than the tulip mania” – recalling events in 17th century Holland when tulips were subject to a speculative price bubble which burst spectacularly.
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third world Wind-down of IBRC nears completion
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ut of a total loan book worth €21.7bn in the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), loans worth €19.8bn have been sold. The balance is now likely to be transferred to the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).
The special liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, said that the sales process had “delivered a very positive result with over 90% of IBRC’s loan assets now sold within 14 months of the Bank’s liquidation.” “The response of markets to the liquidation and sales process has exceeded our expectations.” The liquidators said that 85% of the largest portfolio of €9.3bn of commercial loans had been sold to Deutsche Bank, Lone Star, CarVal Investors and Goldman Sachs – while over 64% of the mortgage portfolio by value has been bought by two US venture funds, Lone Star and Oaktree Capital.
Eamonn Richardson Responding to fears that the buyers of the mortgages may follow a much more aggressive approach to debtors – especially those whose mortgages had originally been taken out with the Irish Nationwide Building Society, the liquidators said that the buyers had agreed to follow the Irish Central Bank’s Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears. The holders of the mortgages have complained about the sale of their loans and argued they should
KPMG Offices in Dublin (Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland) have an opportunity to bid for their outcome of the sale process. While borrowings. But that was ruled out there has been some speculation by the liquidators. that the loans would be sold at a The liquidators have begun discount, the liquidators have not notifying mortgage holders of the revealed any figures.
Pepper to manage Lone Star mortgages Australian company, Pepper Asset Servicing, has been appointed to service the mortgages acquired by Lone Star from IBRC. Entering the Irish market in 2012, Pepper employs over 150 people in Shannon and Dublin. It expects to begin managing the ‘Project Sand’ loans from early August 2014 when the transfer from IBRC is completed.
Outlook for Permanent TSB improves slightly
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ermanent TSB has reported a loss before exceptional items of €977m for 2013 – the same as the year before. Most of the loss is accounted for by an impairment charge of €927m, which was slightly up on 2012 in line with Central Bank guidance. PTSB Chief Executive, Jeremy Masding, said the bank has turned a corner in its restructuring plan – increasing customers and deposits and resuming lending with €200m of mortgages issued last year. Operating losses for 2013 totalled €48m, compared with operating losses of €86m in 2012 – while operating income rose by 28% to €252m.
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The accounts included about €300m in additional provisioning following guidance from the Central Bank after last summer’s balance sheet assessment of the Irish banks on behalf of the Troika. Permanent TSB’s reliance on ECB funding was reduced further last year, falling from 29% to 20% of its total funding – a drop of €3.8bn to €6.9bn.
Retail deposits rose slightly to €14bn, while corporate deposits increased significantly, from €3.1bn to €5.5bn. The bank says its mortgage arrears have peaked and are now in decline. 26% of its home loans and 35% of its buy-to-lets are non-performing. Permanent TSB’s Asset Management Unit – which manages €6.4bn in troubled loans (out of the
Third force Responding to speculation about Permanent TSB’s possible involvement in the creation of a third banking force along with Ulster Bank, Jeremy Masding said that the PTSB had not been engaged in any discussions with Ulster Bank on the matter.
Permanent TSB Chief Executive, Jeremy Masding (Photo: Photocall- Ireland) Group’s €41bn total assets) – made around 18,000 offers of long-term solutions to distressed mortgage holders. The bank says it has met all its Central Bank targets for resolutions.
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Morgan Stanley to pay $275m to sort regulatory probe?
Royal third force? RBS considers possible merger of Ulster Bank to create challenger bank in Republic - report R oyal Bank of Scotland (RBS), is reported to be considering merging or selling off some or all of its Ulster Bank business in the Republic of Ireland, according to the Sunday Times.
RBS is said to be looking to merge Ulster Bank with one or more of Permanent TSB and the Irish subsidiaries of Danske Bank or KBC. The proposed move is intended to reduce costs further according to the Sunday Times, after Ulster Bank reported losses of £1.5bn in 2013, compared to £1bn in 2012. In subsequent interviews with the Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph, Ulster Bank Chief Executive, Jim Brown, did not rule out the claims. However, Permanent-TSB’s Jeremy Masding, subsequently noted that his institution had yet to engage with Ulster Bank on any possible merger.
Ulster Bank had an operating profit of £317m – but it was wiped out by bad loan charges of almost £1.8bn. Ulster Bank has suffered from bad property loans following the change from prudent to reckless lending that after the bank’s acquistion by RBS in 2000. Ulster Bank – which has over over 1.9 million customers – now
accounts for 20% of all bad debt charges in RBS. According to the Sunday Times, RBS is also in talks with private equity firms with a view to ensuring that RBS’s stake in Ulster would fall below 50%. IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick, said he was deeply concerned by this report and would be monitoring developments closely.
Ulster Bank targets business start-ups with dedicated app U
lster Bank has launched a dedicated app to provide information and support to business start-ups.
The new Start-Up Centre App is a one-stop-shop for information, insights and guidance to support new businesses. Available to all Ulster Bank business customers, the app also features an online navigator of all the local enterprise start-up supports across Ireland, lists sources of information and offers immediate guidance from industry experts.
New York-based investment bank, Morgan Stanley, is reported to have agreed to pay $275m to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle an investigation into the deceptive marketing of residential mortgagebacked securities in 2007. The bank’s role as a sponsor and underwriter of sub-prime mortgage-backed bonds is being investigated by the US market watchdog. In an annual filing, Morgan Stanley said that it has reached an “agreement in principle” with the regulator’s enforcement officers – although there is no indication that the arrangement will secure SEC approval. The bank – which reached a massive $13bn settlement with the US regulators over the faulty selling of residential mortgage bond securities (RMBS) to investors – is experiencing a significant drop in demand for mortgage refinancing activities.
Santander UK fined £12.4m for giving poor advice Santander has been fined £12.4m by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for serious failings in its selling of investment products to thousands of customers. Following a mystery shopping exercise in the late summer of 2012, the FCA found that the bank was giving unsuitable advice to customers and that its methods for assessing their capacity for risk were inadequate. In one case, a Santander adviser recommended that a 71-year-old customer should invest £35,000 in a financial product with a six-year term, without properly assessing the customer’s liabilities or health status. “Customers trusted Santander to help them manage their money wisely,” said Tracey McDermott, Director of Enforcement and Financial Crime at the FCA, “but it failed to live up to that responsibility.”
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cap in hand (not!) See No Evil
Hear No Evil
Speak No Evil
Antony Jenkins of Barclays
Stuart Gulliver of HSBC
António Horta-Osório of Lloyds Banking Group
Bonus culture continues in British banking despite EU cap
Executives’ pay in race to top – workers’ pay in race to bottom
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s Britain’s major banking groups have declared annual results in recent weeks, there has been a renewed focus on rewards for senior executives – especially in the light of the decision by Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, to mount a legal challenge to the EU bonus cap, which limits bonuses to a maximum of 100% of salary or up to 200% if shareholders approve. Although recently appointed
Chief Executive, Antony Jenkins, has waxed lyrical about the need to change the culture of banking, Barclays decided to increase the size of its bonus pool by 10% to £2.38bn – while at the same time announcing plans to cut up to 12,000 more jobs. The 10% increase in the bonus pool contrasts sharply with the 32% fall in adjusted profit before tax of £5.2bn in 2013 – which arose in part because of restructure costs and in part from penalties and legal fees due to various of scandals including LIBOR and payment protection insurance (PPI).
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When Jenkins replaced Bob Diamond as CEO, following the June 2012 fine for rigging LIBOR, he promised to cut back bonuses and provide a larger proportion of revenues to shareholders Even though Jenkins has not delivered on this promise, he has at least had the good sense to forego his own bonus for 2013, which has been estimated to be worth £2.7m. Even though HSBC was the only one of Britain’s big four banks to report increased profits in 2013, its earnings of £13.5bn fell about £1bn short of earlier forecasts. Even though HSBC has cut 40,000 jobs worldwide in the last three years, it hay yet to reach its declared targets for cost savings and efficiencies. Lloyds Banking Group – which is 33% State-owned – has awarded its most senior executives bonuses for 2013 and 2014 worth more than £27m potentially – as some do not pay out for three years. As well as basic pay of £1m for 2013, Chief Executive, António HortaOsório is to receive 2.1m shares – worth £1.7m at current prices – for his bonus. He is also set to receive
4.6m shares through a long-term incentive plan designed to pay out in 2017 – which would be worth £3.7m based on Lloyds current share price of 78p. With a £8.24bn loss for 2013, RBS paid out £588m in staff bonuses. However, the Chief Executive, Ross McEwan, and his executive team turned down their bonuses for 2013. “We happen to be the least trusted bank in the least trusted sector in the marketplace,” he said. The Bank of England which is about to conduct a major review of bank bonuses has been urged to clamp down by the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, who described the “new consensus” on pay in British banking as “seriously flawed.” The banks’ approach “does not come close” to meeting the proposals from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which he also chaired. Rather than giving bonuses in shares, banks should award bonds which could be “bailed in” during a crisis. He added that deferring payouts for three years was insufficient.
Breaking
Barclays HSBC Lloyds Bank RBS
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne The Head of the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority, Andrew Bailey, has suggested deferring payments for a decade – while the new Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said last month that bonuses should be deferred “for a very long time.”
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LOOSE LOOSE CHANGE CHANGE
because they’re worth it! Archie faces yet another bonus cut
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ank of Ireland Governor (chairman), Archie Kane – who receives an annual reward package worth about €490,000 – suffered further embarrassment last month as a result of his previous employment as head of Lloyds Banking Group’s insurance division.
g bank to beat cap
Bonus Pot
£2.38bn (+10%) £2.3bn (+6%) k £395m (+75%) £588m (-18 %)
Financial Performance
Profits down 32% Profits up10% Moved back into profit Losses increase by 55%
McEwan’s multiple
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asic pay for RBS Group Chief Executive, Ross McEwan, in 2013 was £1m – excluding bonuses, deferred payments and pension contributions.
RBS Group Chief Executive, Ross McEwan – whose basic pay is 74 times higher than a new starter in RBS.
Basic wage for a new starter at the bank in 2013 was £13,590, according to the British union, UNITE – not much more than the national minimum wage in Britain. So in terms of basic pay alone – leaving aside bonuses and other allowances, the Chief Executive receives 74 times the amount of one of his starting employees.
A bonus payment accruing from 2010 was halved by Lloyds last week as part of his former employer’s continuing efforts to manage the repercussions from the scandal over the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). Described by Which magazine as “the biggest financial mis-selling scandal of all time,” the PPI disaster has so far cost Britain’s banks over €16.6bn to cover customer settlements – with Lloyds share of the compensation amounting to over €7.9bn. Before his departure from Lloyds in 2011, Kane was awarded a bonus of €907,000 for 2010 in the form of shares deferred for three years. However, as the extent of the PPI scandal became apparent, five top executives at Lloyds – including Kane – lost 25% of their bonuses. In last month’s annual report, Lloyds remuneration committee
Bank of Ireland Governor, Archie Kane (Photo: Sasko Lazarov, Photocall-Ireland). recommended a further 25% claw-back of the bonus – reducing the value of Kane’s payment to €453,500. Kane’s current remuneration as Governor of Bank of Ireland includes an annual fee of €394,000 – with a further €39,000 allowance for “accommodation, utilities and car.” The bank’s most recent annual report also indicates that he receives an additional payment of €59,000 for a “consultancy arrangement” with Bank of Ireland’s British subsidiary.
Meanwhile back on the frontline… Nowhere has the contrast between the extremes of modern banking been more graphically illustrated than in the recent spate of announcements of annual results – which also provide some insight into the rewards enjoyed by those at the top of the sector. In addition to very generous basic salaries, many senior executives receive further rewards in the form of bonuses, shares options and special allowances – some of which have been highlighted in Spectrum. To the neutral observer, many of these payments look like rewards for failure. It is hard to fathom what performance standards could have merited the payments: clearly they cannot have been too demanding. In contrast, IBOA regularly deals with disciplinary cases involving individual members who may face the sack as a result of minor infractions of policies which are often arbitrary. In a recent case a member was threatened with disciplinary action for adding money from her own pocket to balance the cash. And the sum? Less than €1.
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regulation issues Central Bank orders refunds of €67.4m for mis-selling of PPI A
total of €67.4m (including interest of €4.9m) is to be refunded to around 77,000 policy holders who were missold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) by eleven financial institutions since 1 July 2007 – following an investigation by the Central Bank of Ireland. This represents 22% of the PPI sales considered by the regulator. Refunds are ordered to be paid in cases where credit institutions failed to comply with the Consumer Protection Code when selling PPI. When initial Central Bank inspections in 2011 raised concerns as to whether some PPI sales had complied with the Code, eleven financial institutions were instructed to review their sales. “The Code contains important protections for consumers,” said Bernard Sheridan (pictured left) Director of Consumer Protection at the Central Bank. “Consumers need to be confident that regulated entities comply with the The eleven institutions Code in their dealings with them. Firms involved in the review selling any financial products must were Allied Irish Banks, ensure they properly assess the needs of Bank of Ireland, Bank consumers and provide products which of Scotland Ireland, meet those needs. Danske Bank, EBS, GE “This applies equally to add-on or Capital Woodchester, linked products, such as PPI, and firms KBC Bank, MBNA Europe must ensure that these products are Bank, Permanent TSB, suitable for the consumer and that the RaboDirect Ireland and consumer is fully informed.” Ulster Bank.
New banking supervisor for Central Bank
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haron Donnery has been appointed as the new Director of Credit Institutions at the Central Bank of Ireland in succession to Fiona Muldoon.
Formerly the Registrar of Credit Unions, Donnery first joined the Central Bank as an economist in 1996. She was Head of Consumer Information and then Head of Consumer Protection before her appointment as Registrar of Credit Unions. Announcing the appointment, the Bank’s Deputy Governor, Cyril Roux, noted that Donnery was taking up the role at a particularly important time with the establishment of the EU’s Single Supervisory Mechanism.
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Sharon Donnery (above) is the new Director of Credit Institutions at the Central Bank in succession to Fiona Muldoon (below).
Whistle while you work Central Bank plans special hotline for whisteblowers
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he Irish Central Bank is planning to set up a dedicated “whistleblowers hotline” to handle allegations of wrongdoing at banks and other financial institutions.
In a consultation paper published last month, the Central Bank proposes to establish a central ‘Whistleblower Desk’ to deal with protected disclosures reported to the organisation. The desk would serve as the primary point of contact for whistleblowers wishing to make a disclosure and is seen as the most efficient and effective use of resources to adequately address the requirements of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013. and provide a robust method of managing protected disclosures. While the Central Bank would accept anonymous disclosures, it would encourage anyone making a report to provide their name and contact details. According to the consultation paper, the Central Bank would not inform whistleblowers of what action, if any, would have been taken as a result of their disclosure. This would be to protect the
rights of all parties in line with statutory requirements. Although a complaint by a consumer might sometimes fall within the definition of a protected disclosure under legislation, the Whistleblower Desk would not ordinarily treat such complaints as whistleblowing. The Central Bank intends to record all telephone calls on the dedicated whistleblower hotline. The proposals – which are based on best practice in the UK, US, Australia and Canada, according to the Central Bank – follow legislation introduced last year in the wake of past criticisms of the regulatory authorities for failing to spot previous instances of wrongdoing in the financial system. The introduction of procedures to allow insiders to report their concerns – either anonymously or openly – is regarded as the first step towards creating a more robust regulatory system. The Central Bank has invited comments and submissions from all interested parties by 19 June 2014. These submissions will be published on the Central Bank website.
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regulation issues
Million dollar mark-ups
British regulator fines State Street UK for overcharging
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tate Street UK has been fined £22,885,000 by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for overcharging clients of its transition management business.
According to the FCA, between January 2010 and September 2011, State Street UK adopted a deliberate and targeted strategy to charge substantial, undisclosed mark-ups over and above the agreed management fee or commission previously agreed with its clients. This systematic overcharging netted $20,169,603 from six of State Street UK’s transition management clients – which accounted for 25% of the total revenue for State Street UK’s transition management business over the same period.
State Street UK’s transition management services involve the provision of support to clients for structural changes to asset portfolios with the intention of managing risk and increasing portfolio returns. During the period between January 2010 to September 2011, State Street UK’s transition management clients were predominately large investment management firms or pension funds. Finding that State Street UK’s TM business had systemic weaknesses in its business practices and internal controls which facilitated multiple breaches of FCA’s Principles of Business, the Authority imposed a discounted fine of £22,885,000 following State Street UK’s agreement to settle at an early stage of the investigation.
Bond villains fined Santander faces €16.9m penalty for mis-selling
S Jaime Botín has also been fined by the Spanish regulator
More LIBOR litigation US regulator charges 16 banks with manipulating LIBOR
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he US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has sued sixteen major international banks operating in the US over their alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR). The State banking regulator claims that the banks cheated several other banks that are currently disfunctional by conspiring to manipulate the LIBOR interest rate – an action which interfered with the competitive process in the markets. The lawsuit is the latest of the several cases against financial institutions for conspiring to rig LIBOR. Several of the banks which are named in this lawsuit – including Barclays and UBS – have previously paid about $6bn in fines to US and
European authorities for manipulating benchmark interest rates. Other defendants include RBS, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase. The FDIC has alleged that the conduct of the sixteen banks in fixing the LIBOR has caused significant losses to 38 other banks that have been taken into receivership by the regulator since 2008 – including Washington Mutual Bank and IndyMac Bank. The FDIC lawsuit also cited the British Bankers’ Association, which was responsible for the administration of the LIBOR until 2012 when LIBOR became a regulated activity overseen by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.
pain’s Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) – the regulatory body of the Spanish stock market – has imposed a penalty of €16.9m on Banco Santander for misselling bonds to investors. The CNMV charged the bank for failing to offer essential information to the buyers of its bonds, according to The Financial Times. Santander is reported to have sold €7bn in convertible bonds to customers during 2007, as part of its efforts to secure the necessary finance to acquire the Dutch bank, ABN Amro. But the fall in Santander’s share price during the 2008 banking crisis resulted in huge losses for investors who bought the bonds. The bank has rejected any claims of wrongdoing. Appealing the CNMV’s decision, Santander has noted that the regulator had not found fault with the bank’s original sales prospectus. The CNMV also imposed a €500,000 fine on Jaime Botín, the younger brother of Santander’s executive chairman, Emilio, for failing to disclose the size of his holding in the Spanish retail bank, Bankinter.
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Out of sight – out of mind Could outsourcing of key IT functions weaken oversight of financial sector? A
s Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, Prudential Regulation Authority and the Bank of England prepare to investigate the supervision and operation of IT in banking after a succession of technological failures, we reflect on recent developments in Ireland – and in particular the growing trend towards outsourcing key IT tasks.
Over the last two decades, information technology has become integral to the practice of banking in Ireland. IT has effectively become the central nervous system of Irish banking. And this dependence on IT is likely to become more pronounced in the future – as all the retail banks operating in Ireland appear set to roll out ever more advanced electronic services to customers based around the internet and smartphone technology. But the legacy of years of underinvestment in IT capacity in many of our major financial institutions – allied to the belief that in the short term, at least, further savings may be achieved in terms of labour costs – provides them with a pretext – however tenuous – for outsource many IT-based operations. All of the major retail banks in Ireland have engaged in outsourcing to some degree in recent years. The indications are that this trend is likely to gain momentum in the short to medium term. While the two banks with parents headquartered outside Ireland – Ulster Bank and Danske Bank – can claim that these outsourced operations are merely being relocated elsewhere within the
Above: Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Dr. Patrick Honohan (Photo: Sam Boal/ Photocall-Ireland).
Below: Crann an Oir (Tree of Gold) at the the Central Bank in Dublin. (Photo: Laura Hutton/ Photocall-Ireland)
Group, there is no totally reliable way of verifying the accuracy of this claim, once the activity is subsumed into a Group function which may then be transferred on to some third-party contractor operating in another jurisdiction entirely. Transparency The two banks headquartered on the island of Ireland – Bank of Ireland and AIB – are marginally more transparent in terms of outsourcing in that it is a little easier to track the location of the work. However, if they contract the work out to a multinational service provider – especially one with little or no tradition of trade union organisation elsewhere within the company – then there may be a lack of transparency as to where the work is actually performed. Outsourcing is a major concern to IBOA – primarily to safeguard the jobs and livelihoods of any members who may be at risk. While the EU Transfer of Undertakings Regulations provide a minimum level of protection, the Union’s principal aim in such circumstances is to secure terms over and above the statutory minimum. But as the trend towards outsourcing and off-shoring has accelerated in recent years. But with the banking sector and the wider economy still suffering the catastrophic effects of the most recent sector-wide regulatory failure, IBOA has become increasingly worried about the lack of oversight of IT capabilities in Irish banking – which appears even less robust when
these functions are delivered from remote locations outside the jurisdiction. The notorious IT meltdown at Ulster Bank/RBS in the summer of 2012 demonstrates that a substantial IT systems failure can not only paralyse a major financial institution for a number of weeks: but also cause major difficulties for the banking sector as a whole. Despite much public hand-wringing at the time, the Irish regulator ultimately had to accept the assurances of Ulster Bank and RBS about the IT platform because it did not have the expertise to analyse the situation for itself. Even though a number of reviews were conducted into the causes of the IT meltdown both internally by RBS and externally by the British authorities, no report was ever made public either in Britain or in Ireland. It is to be hoped that the new investigation of IT in the British banking might throw some light on the events of the recent past. Otherwise we won’t know if the cause of the RBS meltdown remains a mystery (and therefore likely to recur) or if it is just too embarrassing to disclose to the general public. Yet despite this clear evidence of one of the potential pitfalls of outsourcing still vivid in the memory, the Central Bank of Ireland has shown no concern for the potential downside of this trend. These are operational issues, they argue, which are ultimately matters for the institutions to determine. This “seeno-evil” approach is reminiscent of the Irish regulator’s approach in the run-up to the crash in 2008. For anyone still hoping for a change in the culture of banking it does not augur well.
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customer focus
Banking online Are branches on the way out?
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ne of the new elements of conventional wisdom that has been strongly promoted by banks in Ireland and in Britain recently is that the era of the local branch is over.
Customers, they say, are voting with their feet – or rather tapping with their fingers – in support of direct channels – a synapse-firing matrix of mobile, web, ATM and landline connectivity – in preference to the old-style banking hall. This new trend towards e-banking has been used by many banks as a pretext for systemic under-investment in their physical infrastructure: not only are networks reducing but bank premises are also becoming smaller on average. The global banking crisis has been the catalyst for a rapid acceleration in the use of new technology as financial institutions have sought to cut costs even more rapidly. Statistics are increasingly advanced by managements to the effect that only a minority of transactions take place through branch networks. We heard it when National Irish Bank closed half of its branch network. It was repeated again when the rest of the branch network was closed down. And of course, we now see the final outcome of that trend: the departure of Danske Bank from the Republic of Ireland.
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So now when Ulster Bank begins to frame its commentary in similar terms, is it any wonder that the alarm bells begin to ring for some of its more perceptive employees? Is it true that customer preferences are changing dramatically? Or are banks using customer preferences selectively to promote their cost-cutting agenda? Up to this point, the only statistics available on this issue were supplied by the banks themselves. So it has been difficult to determine what exactly was being measured – never mind the suitability of the method of calculation.
Bricks and Clicks
72%
of consumers still usually go to the high street, shopping centres or retail parks to access banking and financial services, according to Deloitte
But some independent evidence emerged recently from the business consultants, Deloitte, whose report, Bricks and Clicks, examined customer behaviour in England and Wales. In its consumer review on reinventing the role of the high street, Deloitte found that 72% of consumers still usually go to the high street, shopping centres or retail parks to access banking and financial services, while more than two-thirds said they will continue to do so in the near future. In its analysis of the future prospects for branch banking, Deloitte went on to examine over 10,400 bank branch sites in England and Wales – factoring in 56 variables across current and forecast changes in consumer behaviour, age
structures, personal wealth, economics and business demographics. The result, according to Harvey Lewis of Deloitte, “will surprise decision-makers who have assumed the battle for branches has already been lost to direct channels.” The research – which broke the branches down into seven key micromarket segments – found that 56% of bank branches are located in segments where the demand for high-quality face-to-face services is likely to increase in the next five years, according to the consultants. “Our analysis also suggests that even though a high percentage of young customers may already be banking online or via smartphones, their financial needs could be met very effectively by face-to-face interactions in branches, where the banks can more easily provide a good customer experience and thus improve retention and crossselling opportunities,” says Lewis. “Conversely, segments with a largely older demographic will tend to rely less on branches because large numbers of ‘silver surfers’ are forecast to shift to internet and mobile platforms for their simple transactions over the next five years.” While no such comparable research exists for the Republic and Northern Ireland, it seems likely that consumers in these jurisdictions are likely to be
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customer focus
at least as keen to retain the facility to bank face-to-face – not only because of the unreliable nature of broadband provision in many parts of the island – but also in view of the unreliable nature of the banks’ own IT infrastructure. The Ulster Bank experience in the summer of 2012 remains a salutary reminder of the importance of maintaining an accessible branch network staffed by human beings with personal experience of customers. When computer systems fail – as they have done with startling regularity – customers still need to be able to access funds in the “traditional” manner. While RBS Group Chief Executive, Ross MacEwan, has conceded recently that the Group’s highly centralised IT facility is suffering from decades of underinvestment, independent analysts believe that the “penny-wise-pound-foolish” approach to technology is typical of the banking sector in Britain and Ireland. Even this negative has been turned into an opportunity for further cuts by some managements who now claim that they have to outsource some of these functions to third-party contractors as they lack the necessary expertise in-house. If the financial sector on these islands was genuinely committed to serving customers through direct channels, it should have made a far more substantial investment in the technology and the talent on a continuous basis.
The failure to commit the necessary resources – both in the past and even in the present – suggests that for some of the major retail banks, the current headlong rush towards e-banking may be driven more by the need to find a cheaper alternative to branches (and the employees who staff them) than to provide a genuinely enhanced service to customer. Indeed, many customers feel they are being pressured into adopting the new technologies more quickly than would otherwise be the case by the fact that reduced staffing levels in branches means that if they want to deal with a human being – as opposed to some form of ATM – then they will be probably have to stand in a queue for quite some time.
Putting customers first
Senior executives may speak eloquently of putting the customer first – but their customers they seem to have in mind are completely tech-savvy individuals who are not only to take advice and information online or by phone but also are sufficiently well connected by wifi or broadband to do so – without ever needing to hold face-to-face conversations about their personal finances. Some might argue that this image of the ideal customer existing in an IT bubble is a mirror image of the “bunker mentality” of some of the senior exec-
Not wanted in future: Clockwise from top left: Danske Bank (Markethill, Co. Armagh); Halifax (College Green, Dublin); First Trust Bank, Belleek, Co. Fermanagh; and First Active (Grand Parade, Cork).
utives in Irish banking who are often perceived to live and work in a kind of silo, distant from their employees and even more remote from their customers. Many bank staff will recall feeling like human shields during the worst days of the recent crisis – taking the flak for the decisions made by more senior executives who remained insulated from the consequences and the hostile reaction of customers. It is possible that in future bank staff will no longer have to act as a buffer between customers and their bosses – because layers of technology will be deployed to do that instead. Banking would then become even more impersonal and dehumanised – hardly the way to reconnect with customers, especially if the technology platform continues to be as unreliable as it is now. In such a scenario who could blame customers if they sought out alternative providers with more reliable technology or more human relationships. But taking a considered view of these trends based on comprehensive analysis – rather than selective propaganda points – implies a long-term perspective that is alien to the shortterm opportunistic mindset which was at the root of the financial crisis – and which still persists in too many areas of Irish banking today.
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inside iboa
Peter Bunting of ICTU
Stand up to ‘Tory bullying’– NIC-ICTU Public representatives in Northern Ireland should unite to resist the efforts by the UK Government to impose sweeping welfare cuts, according to the recent Conference of the Northern Ireland Committee of the ICTU in Derry – which was attended by delegates from a number of unions including IBOA. “There is nothing an autocrat enjoys more than a divided opposition,” said ICTU Assistant General Secretary, Peter Bunting. “The political parties in Stormont have allowed themselves to be split along sectarian lines on welfare reform, when this process is an insidious assault on the most vulnerable regardless of their faith or ethnicity. “Iain Duncan Smith does not care if his victims are nationalist or unionist,” said Bunting. “He has contempt for the working poor and the unemployed and the DUP are letting down their own supporters by backing his vandalism of the social contract which is the basis of social welfare. “The First Minister and the Deputy First Minister can take action on behalf of their most vulnerable constituents by standing together and seeking allies in the devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales to create a popular front of concerted opposition to these cruel changes to the welfare system. “Despite the threats from the Treasury in London, the real cost of imposing welfare reform is far greater to the economy and social cohesion of Northern Ireland.”
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White’s Hotel, Wexford: venue for next month’s Bank Secretaries’ Conference and Special Delegate Conference.
Union’s Vision 2020 project in sharp focus Wexford conference to chart next step in building for future
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key stage has been reached in the strategic review of the Union’s future structures and operations – Vision 2020 – which will be considered at a Special Delegate Conference in Wexford next month. Many individuals have already contributed their views to the process – either in a personal or professional capacity – which is being co-ordinated by a special sub-committee of the Union’s Executive Committee with the assistance of consultants, Ampersand. As the review group has begun to develop a clearer vision of the direction to be followed, it is timely to report back to the Union’s Bank District Secretaries who are scheduled to meet in Wexford on May 22-23.
This Conference will not only have an opportunity to consider progress so far but also to provide further feed-
back on further lines of inquiry to be pursued in developing a coherent vision for the future. As this process is expected to continue for some time, the Executive Committee has decided to convene the assembly in Wexford as a Special Delegate Conference to consider amendments to the Union’s Constitution which would allow the strategic review process to continue without interruption until it arrives at final proposals for structures and operational arrangements to serve the Union into the future.
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inside iboa I
BOA’s continuing efforts to develop greater understanding of the state of Irish banking – and the difficulties facing finance workers – has moved up a gear in recent months with concerted lobbying of politicians by members in both IBRC and Ulster Bank and presentations by Union representatives to two parliamentary bodies. E-mails and letters targetting all
national public representatives in the Republic as well as a number in Northern Ireland have been sent by IBOA members – supported in some cases by non-members – in IBRC to highlight the plight of staff who are losing their jobs with only statutory redundancy payments as compensation following the ‘special’ liquidation of the business. Efforts to secure improved compensation have continued – and with this continued pressure from employees on their public representatives – Union General Secretary, Larry Broderick, hopes that a breakthrough may still be possible to secure additional compensation for the staff of IBRC. IBOA members in Ulster Bank have also been contacting their local public representatives in both Northern Ireland and the Republic to outline their concerns about the potential impact on both customers and staff of the
IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick (left), and Communications Manager, Séamas Sheils (right), appear before the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in Westminster recently.
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Political engagement IBOA in Westminster, Stormont, Dublin decision by Ulster Bank’s parent, RBS, that its Irish operation should undergo a further restructuring programme – on top of the two major rationalisation exercises that have already taken place within the last four years.
UK House of Commons
Uncertainty over the future of Ulster Bank was one of the triggers for the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons at Westminster to launch its own inquiry into the state of banking in Northern Ireland. After inviting written submissions from interested parties, the Committee then began to consider oral presentations from some of those organisations and individuals who had responded. IBOA finally appeared before the Committee in late January to respond to questions on recent developments. The Union also shared results from a survey of IBOA activists in Northern Ireland on a range of issues affecting customers and staff at the present time. The IBOA’s presentation can be seen online at www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/ Player.aspx?meetingId=14695
Northern Ireland Assembly
Earlier this month, the Union met the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee which invited IBOA to attend because of growing concern among Ulster Bank customers and staff after the RBS review and recent media comments by Ulster Bank Chief Executive, Jim Brown, about closing branches and reducing staff numbers. The dialogue with IBOA can be seen online www.bbc.co.uk/democracy live/northern-ireland-26975031
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inside iboa Pay, rewards back on talks agenda
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he issue of pay and reward is once again a key priority on the Union’s bargaining agenda with most, if not all, of the employments where the staff are represented by IBOA – after a number of years of pay stagnation in light of the economic downturn.
“With many financial institutions expecting either to continue in profit or to return to profitability by the end of 2014, our claim for appropriate recognition for our members’ contribution to this recovery has renewed substance,” said IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick. movement reflects This similar developments in the wider economy where unions in a number of sectors have begun to pursue increases in pay. While recognising that some sectors were still fragile, ICTU General Secretary, David Begg, said recently that “there are sectors which can afford a pay rise and I think where they can be afforded, they should be pursued.” Meanwhile IBOA is collaborating with a number of other unions – including Mandate, the Communication Workers’ Union, SIPTU and Unite the Union – in producing a short video film outlining the case for improved pay. It will be available on the Union websites from May 1.
Executive members elected
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wo new members have taken their seats on the Union’s Executive Committee recently – following the by-elections to fill the vacancies caused by the resignations of Stephen Kennedy (Bank of Ireland – Cork) and Peter Lacey (AIB – Dublin) – who have both left their respective employments. Łukasz Adasik was the successful candidate on Leeside while Roger James has been returned in the capital for a second stint on the Executive.
Łukasz Adasik Łukasz Adasik has been elected as the new Executive Committee member for the Bank of Ireland (Cork) constituency in succession to Stephen Kennedy. A native of Poland, Łukasz works in Customer Service in Cork City. He has been employed by Bank of Ireland since the autumn of 2007 and has been an IBOA member since 2008 when the banking crisis was just about to begin. “When I joined the Bank it was completely different from what it is today,” he said. “We have less staff, more work and a lot of experienced staff members have chosen to leave.” A Branch Rep since the beginning of 2013, Łukasz became a member of the Union’s Youth Committee last summer. As major negotiations begin on remuneration and reward in Bank of Ireland, Łukasz aims to ensure that his colleagues receive a fair deal. “I come from a country where unions have changed history and I know that when we unite, nothing can stop us.”
Roger James Roger James has been returned as one of the four Executive Committee members for the AIB Dublin constituency – following the resignation of Peter Lacey. Employed with AIB since 1984, Roger is a long-standing IBOA member and activist – having represented members at all levels from Branch Rep to Bank District Secretary and as an Executive Committee member for over five years until April 2013. With outsourcing and offshoring on management agendas throughout Irish banking, Roger is determined to scrutinise the rationale behind any proposals with a view to ensuring that the interests of our members are protected. He is also concerned to ensure that, as AIB returns to profitability, our members’ contribution to the Bank’s recovery is not only recognised but also rewarded appropriately. “The road ahead will be difficult for all us – but with the support of our members, I believe, we can make a positive difference,” he said.
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GOING CONCERNS
inside iboa
The IT crowd IBOA celebrates members’ computer training success
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he latest batch of “graduates” from the Union’s computer training courses for members in Northern Ireland were feted at a reception in the Belfast Bankers’ Club last month.
The event was well attended by many of the course participants who have successfully achieved the City and Guilds award (Levels 1/2) in Information and Communications Technology. IBOA’s Training Officer, Marian Geoghegan, paid tribute to all of the members for their commitment to the programme which took place over 17 evenings and was offered in three different venues – in Belfast, Enniskillen and Omagh – at no charge to the participants. IBOA’s involvement in the Union Learning Fund, Northern Ireland and its partnership with the North West Regional College has facilitated this training for members who have no formal qualifications in IT. “So far over 150 IBOA members have benefitted from these courses and we hope to continue to provide this valuable training for members and associate members,” Marian explained. Three new evening courses in ICT Essential Skills have begun in Belfast recently. So if you are thinking about acquiring further skills and want further information about IBOA Union Learning, please contact Marian at marian.geoghegan@iboa.ie
In their own write! The graduates give their assessments
Above: IBOA Training Officer, Marian Geoghegan, congratulates IT course graduate Irene Jess.
“A big thanks to IBOA for a great course and especially as it was free! I work part-time and money doesn’t come easy, so I really appreciate what IBOA has done for us. This course will be of great benefit to me in the future.” Irene – Danske Bank
“Many thanks to IBOA for offering this course. We all found it an enjoyable and positive learning experience. We would like to thank our excellent tutor, Fiona, for her expertise and patience! We wish to be considered for any further courses to be offered by IBOA. Many thanks.” Deirdre, Hazel and Susan – FTB
Below: Union Learning Rep, Mark Johnson, with previous course graduate, Sarah Corbett, at the reception.
“An excellent course and it was ‘free’! Fiona (tutor) was very inspirational and it was great to go back to my Department and help my colleagues with my new skills. They thought that I was a ‘Ledger Girl’ of the 70s. Now I a ‘Competent Computer Girl.’ Katrina – Danske Bank
Many thanks to the IBOA for organising the course which has been very useful for us ex-bank staff who have years of experience but no qualifications. We can now get out there among the young techno kids. Fiona was an excellent tutor.” The ex-Pats – formerly with Danske Bank and Ulster Bank
For information about training and personal development courses for IBOA members, please contact Marian at marian.geoghegan@iboa.ie or Louise at louise.odonnell@iboa.ie
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DISCOUNT WINDOW
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IBOA THE FINANCE UNION
www.iboa.ie
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making your cash go further Your IBOA subscription is worth a great deal more Taking it to a new level Discounts and savings are always welcome – but most especially in times when money is particularly tight. That’s why IBOA has been exploring ways and means to ensure that your take-home pay can go further by achieving better value. Our IBOAPlus scheme has been a modest attempt in this direction and has produced many worthwhile savings for members. But this month, we are launching a new scheme for members which takes our efforts to a whole new level – both in terms of the savings to be made and the range of products and services available.
The IBOA Group Scheme The IBOA Group Scheme provides special member discounts through an easy-to-use online directory covering hundreds of offers from leading brands and service providers – which you can access from a variety of devices such as desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets. The range and value of these discounts is so great that you could more than cover the cost of your IBOA membership subscription by the savings you can make! The IBOA Group Scheme is free to IBOA members (including Pensioner Members and Associate Members). So even if your are leaving your employment, it will be worth keeping up your link with the Union – for this benefit alone.
Accessing the IBOA Group Scheme Access to the IBOA Group Scheme is through the My IBOA area of the Union websites – www.iboa.ie and www.iboa.org.uk – to ensure that the benefits are available to members only. But don’t worry registering in the My IBOA area couldn’t be easier. You can now use either your IBOA membership number or your employee (bank/work) number to verify your identity. Then set yourself a password and get ready to make great savings! While you are in the My IBOA area, you can also update your personal details – if you have a change of address or other contact information. You can also set your communication preferences to tell us how you wish to receive news and information from IBOA and to indicate any areas of special interest.
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BANK NOTES
Mobility goes with job
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IBOA THE FINANCE UNION
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aib group
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n attempt by AIB to withdraw company cars from Financial Planning Consultants (FPCs) is being strongly resisted by the Union.
At the Labour Court hearing of the case at the end of last month., IBOA argued forcefully that, unlike other bank employees who had been provided with cars to reflect their status, our FPC members required transport to enable them to carry out their essential functions in meeting customers. In this sense, the vehicles can be described as “functional cars.” IBOA Senior Industrial Official, Billy Barrett, also highlighted recent attempts by AIB management to redefine some elements of the FPCs‘ remit in order to minimise the need for them to be provided with transport. However, these efforts would ultimately result in a poorer service with more inconvenience for customers, he said. The Court’s recommendation – which is expected in the near future – will be put to our FPC members for consideration in a ballot.
Sign in the window (Photo: Photocall Ireland)
Fully engaged IBOA working to transform relationships with AIB management
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IBOA Senior Industrial Relations Officer, Billy Barrett
Transfer of Clearing to BancTec Negotiations on the outsourcing of AIB’s cheque clearing operation to third party service provider, BancTec, have been completed. The final proposals for the transfer of work and staff to BancTec were accepted by members after further clarification was sought by the Union. A total of 90 workers have been affected by the move.
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Union General Secretary, Larry Broderick, backing wider engagement in AIB
major effort is under way in AIB to rebuild staff morale and restore employee confidence after over five years of major change driven by the need to return the Bank to a sound financial footing in the wake of the unprecedented collapse in its fortunes since 2008. In a new departure IBOA is aiming to transform its relationships with management at all levels in AIB. In line with the provisions of Resources Support Control made a last summer’s Labour Court recom- joint presentation on the progress so mendations accepted by members, far on developing these engagement AIB’s senior management and IBOA principles. have been involved in wide-ranging The response to the presentadiscussions under the guidance of tion was positive – with many Bank independent company, Questions Secretaries seeing the principles as of Difference, in order to improve an opportunity to develop the Union relations between the two bodies within AIB as well as providing into the future. them with a wider responsibility an The discussions continue to pro- influence within the workplace. gress at pace with growing evidence “A very important meeting will of a significant commitment being take place next month when promade by both sides to enhance and posals for a number of engagement improve the quality of the engage- initiatives relating to training, future ment between IBOA and AIB roles and responsibilities will be dismanagement. cussed,” said Barrett. At a meeting of the Union’s AIB “We hope this will lead to a new Bank Secretaries earlier this month, approach to industrial relations in IBOA Senior Industrial Relations AIB which will make a tangible difOfficer, Billy Barrett, and Dave ference to our members now and in Keenan, AIB’s Head of Human future as well as to the Bank.”
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ulster bank
Ready for talks
Dates set for start of negotiations on further restructuring of Ulster Bank
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he long anticipated start to negotiations between IBOA and Ulster Bank senior management on the plans for a further restructuring of the bank is finally under way. A number of parallel strands – dealing with different aspects of the talks agenda are under discussion – including the review of salary protection for redeployed staff; the review of the bank’s property arrangements (including the future of its Dublin head office on George’s Quay); and perhaps most significantly of all, the Union’s demand for a comprehensive overarching agreement which will establish the core principles to underpin the implementation of change within Ulster Bank in future. February. But in the event, no formal The movement towards talks announcement was forthcoming. follows a lengthy period of uncertainty Instead both staff and customers have for Ulster Bank employees – after the been drip-fed nuggets of information announcement from RBS in November without any sense of the overall picture. that while it remained committed to In recent interviews with the Irish a presence in Ireland through Ulster Times and the Belfast Telegraph, Ulster Bank, the operations of its Irish subsidBank Chief Executive, Jim Brown, said iary would be subject to a further review. that the bank’s branch network in Ireland The November announcement is to be reduced from 214 to 175 over the came after a period of intense specunext three years while its workforce is to lation about the future of RBS arising be reduced from 5,600 to somewhere from the review conducted by the between 4,000 and 4,500. UK Treasury, with the assistance of In subsequent responses, Brown, BlackRock and Rothschild. said that he expected that a significant While IBOA welcomed the RBS number of job losses would arise as a commitment to remain in Ireland, the result of the accelerated programme of prospect of a further review of Ulster disposals of the bank’s toxic assets – with Bank’s operations was viewed with a face value of over €9bn – which RBS concern. have been instructed to “resolve” within The outcome of the review was origthree years by the British Treasury – its inally expected to be announced along effective owner with an 81% stake. with RBS’s annual results at the end of
Ulster Bank Chief Executive, Jim Brown.
IBOA’s Senior Industrial Relations Officer, Gerry Hanna
Union General Secretary, Larry Broderick, has expressed concern at the manner in which information was being disclosed to staff and customers – urging the bank’s senior management to reveal the full details of its plans for the future. However, the bank’s senior executives have declined to do so. On the latest occasion at an appearance before the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Jim Brown frustrated a number of MLAs with his inability to provide specific information on branch closures or any other details of the bank’s future strategy. His response on the question of branch closures was that the matter would be kept under constant review – not a very satisfactory response for either customers or staff, as Committee members noted. “While the beginning of talks should provide further clarity on a number of issues, it may still be some time before the full picture emerges,” said IBOA Senior Industrial Relations Officer, Gerry Hanna. “However, we are determined to seek the fullest possible disclosure of the senior management’s intentions so that if we arrive at a point where our members have to make a choice about their future employment with Ulster Bank, they will be able to do so in as informed a fashion as possible.” “Considering the contribution they have made already in the most difficult of circumstances in recent years, our members in Ulster Bank deserve nothing less,” he added.
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bank of ireland group Rewards, roles and career paths under negotiation N
egotiations are under way between Bank of Ireland management and IBOA on a new model for employee remuneration.
Wide agenda for discussion as talks begin
The aim of the engagement is to develop proposals which would provide: • clarity around roles and responsibilities; • recognition for skills and qualifications; • an agreed career path within the Bank; and • a sustainable reward system for the future.
This comprehensive review is necessary because of the wide-ranging changes that have taken place – and are continuing to take place – both within Bank of Ireland and the financial services sector in general. Engagement on these issues was agreed between the parties at the con-
clusion of the negotiations on the new pensions arrangements in Bank of Ireland which were accepted by our members in a ballot. “The outstanding issue of pay is to be discussed in the context of this wider review,” said IBOA Senior Industrial Relations Officer, Gerry Hanna. “Although we had originally thought that this process might be concluded by the end of last month, the scale of
the undertaking means that it could not be completed within the original time-frame. “In the meantime,” he added, “IBOA has sought and received a commitment from senior management that there will be no change to contracts of employment or any other agreements between the Union and the employer until such time as the talks have concluded and agreement has been reached.”
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Bank of Ireland proposes to outsource IT work to Accenture
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ank of Ireland management has proposed to outsource work from its Group Technology and Change (GTaC) division to Acccenture.
Up to 200 employees could be affected by the development – which the Bank aim to implement by June. The Union has entered into negotiations with management to ensure that the interests of IBOA members are protected as fully as possible.
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IBOA Reps in IBRC, Brendan Cooper and Sinead Lyon with General Secretary, Larry Broderick (Photo: Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)
Hopes rise for fairer deal for IBRC workers
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s we go to press, hopes are rising of a breakthrough in the year-long struggle to secure fairer severance compensation for IBRC workers – whose previous redundancy arrangements were unilaterally set aside when the company entered into “special liquidation” at the behest of the Irish Parliament last February. IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick, told Spectrum that the patient diplomacy of the independent mediator, Kieran Mulvey, appeared to be close to delivering a set of proposals for additional payments to be made in recognition of the IBRC staff’s contribution to the success of the dispoasal of the company’s assets through the liquidation process. Kieran Mulvey became directly involved in the IBRC redundancy issue last October following continuing pressure on political representatives in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland from IBOA members in IBRC – supported by many non-union colleagues. The lobbying effort included e-mails and letters facilitated by the IBOA websites – as well as face-to-face meetings with politicians in their constituencies. By ensuring that the pursuit of a fairer deal remained a live political issue, the IBRC workers provided the platform for the Union to push for a resolution. While last month it appeared that the initiative may be running into the sand, a further round of shuttle diplomacy amid further media attention appears to have breathed new life into
the search for an acceptable outcome – as the special liquidator prepares to complete the disposal of around 90% of the IBRC loan book. “A number of factors have come together to provide an extra impetus
Above: Kieran Mulvey of the Labour Relations Commission – independent mediator in IBRC (Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall-Ireland).
towards a settlement,” added Broderick. “We hope that may be sufficient to deliver a meaningful offer from the special liquidator, Kieran Wallace – brokered by the mediator, Kieran Mulvey. Our members in IBRC deserve no less – especially in view of the dignified but determined way they have sought to be treated with respect – while at the same time discharging their duties as employees in a highly professional manner.”
THE POWER OF
At this crucial period in the history of Irish banking, it is vital that the independent voice of finance workers is as strong as possible. In order to improve our bargaining power in the crucial negotiations – with employers, government and regulatory authorities – it is essential that we all continue to build IBOA The Finance Union by encouraging our colleagues to join. Many members are already taking the time to do this. As a token of our appreciation for these efforts, the Union is offering a shopping voucher worth €50 or £35 to any members who signs up three new members to IBOA. It’s a win-win for you: a nice reward and a stronger Union. For more information, contact Gareth Murphy at IBOA House by phone on 01-4755908 (from the Republic of Ireland) or 02890-200130 (from Northern Ireland or Britain) or e-mail: gareth.murphy@iboa.ie
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“I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together…to protect their own economic status.”
Albert Einstein Founder Member of Local 552 (Princeton Branch) of the American Federation of Teachers BE SMART • BE UNION 30
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danske bank Danske unions conduct survey of employee satisfaction
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he Danske Bank Group of Unions – which includes IBOA – is conducting a survey to compare the experiences of Danske Bank employees in different countries in order to help the Group’s efforts to improve working life union members in Danske Bank.
“As we often get mixed signals about the levels of employee satisfaction and well-being,” said IBOA’s Danske Bank Officer, Eileen Gorman, “we want to collect more detailed information on these topics to assist us in our discussions with management at either Group level or at national level. The results of the survey – which has been completed by Danske Bank workers in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Ireland – are currently being processed.
IBOA’s Danske Bank Officer, Eileen Gorman – “desperately sad” news for workers
Danske staff back pay deal
Increases expected to exceed CPI rise I
BOA members in Danske Bank in Northern Ireland have voted in a ballot to accept the final offer to emerge from intense wage negotiations between IBOA and the Bank’s senior management.
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Under the proposal – which was the best that can be achieved through talks in the opinion of the IBOA negotiating team – most categories of staff are to receive a pay increase for 2014 of 2% or more. According to recent analysis, average gross annual earnings for workers in Northern Ireland for the period 2008 to 2013 grew by 5.8%. In the same period, the average cumulative pay rise achieved by IBOA for its members in Danske Bank in Northern Ireland was 16.35% – more than double the average increase achieved elsewhere in the Northern Ireland economy. Nevertheless, there was a degree of disappointment on the IBOA’s negotiating team that management was unable to offer more – especially since Danske Bank Northern Ireland returned to profit in the final quarter of 2013. However, the management team argued that for most categories of
staff the offer would exceed the expected increase in the Consumer Price Index and added that a more modest pay rise was necessary to copper-fasten the bank’s improved financial performance. Management also pointed to the results of the 2013 Employee Opinion Survey which indicated that although staff are generally less satisfied about remuneration than other issues in the survey, improving areas such as Personal and Professional Development and Daily Work have a greater impact on their levels of satisfaction and motivation. “In a financial climate where staff in other banks and financial institutions have been experiencing pay freezes over the last five years, we have again secured an acceptable outcome through collective bargaining,” said IBOA Senior Industrial Relations Officer, Gerry Hanna.
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Another Day Another Scandal!
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ardly a day passes now without a new allegation of greed-fueled impropriety in some part of the banking system either at home or abroad. Not content with levying one of any number of charges on virtually every transaction, some banks seem unable to resist the temptation to stack the odds even further in their own favour.
Last month Bloomberg reported that several international banks have been accused of manipulating the “gold fix” – a key benchmark in the $20 trillion gold commodities market. A New York resident, Kevin Maher, has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court against a number of banks including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC. This follows a recent research report by New York University Professor, Rosa Abrantes-Metz, and Moody’s Investors Service analyst, Albert Metz, highlighting unusual patterns in the gold benchmarks. Meanwhile some 15 banks and more than 20 traders have been facing a global investigation into allegations of manipulating foreign exchange rates – considered by some to be the world’s biggest financial market – involving trades worth $5.3 trillion a day. Barclays and Deutsche Bank are in the frame for this one, too – along with UBS, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase – for allegedly colluding to fix benchmark exchange rates in their favour, resulting in higher costs for pension funds, mutual funds, multinational corporations and other bank clients who routinely buy and sell currencies.
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In such a vast market, a scheme that skimmed even a minuscule fraction from each transaction could translate into millions being siphoned off into bank profits and trader bonuses each day. It seems that the traders involved in the scam communicated with each other through online chats – referring to themselves as “the cartel,” “the bandits’ club” and “the mafia.” Regulators were alerted to the activity in the chat rooms by a whistle-blower, according to The Financial Times. While the prevailing narrative from the banking establishment will undoubtedly focus once again on “rogue traders” – more bad apples in an otherwise in an otherwise virtuous barrel – a handful of individuals are ultimately not the problem. In this particular case, foreign exchange is one of the least transparent and least policed of all financial markets – with much of the trading still done by phone. As traders generally receive bonuses based on how much profit they generate from currency trades, they are incentivised to seek the exchange
rates, that offer the most personal advantage especially if there is no strong oversight from senior management. Policy makers already know what is needed to bring transparency to impenetrable markets –namely, trading through properly regulated exchanges, with clear benchmarks, and pay based on fees rather than bonuses. These measures need to be supported by the will as well as the means to prosecute misconduct, including: • recovery of illegally earned bonuses, • meaningful sanctions against management for failing to supervise, • financial penalties that cannot be offset by higher charges to customers; and • criminal prosecutions, where warranted. In the absence of such an approach, the steady stream of recent scandals – including LIBOR fixing, the mis-selling of business insurance in Britain and the mis-selling of payment protection insurance in Britain and Ireland – will do serious reputational damage to the banking sector. Cynics might say that banking is now immune to reputational damage because its reputation is already at rock bottom. But for any bankers who are not cocooned by their own arrogance, a continuing litany of wrong-doing is a real concern because developments like the emergence of more reliable electronic payment channels operated by corporations outside the finance sector – could pose a serious threat to any banks which have lost the confidence of the public.
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Poor in the USA
Over one third of bank tellers live on or below the poverty line
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he inequalities and injustices faced by America’s finance workers was highlighted recently in a day of action in New York City organised by the Global Finance Workers’ Alliance, bringing together bank workers from across the world to march on Wall Street and show their solidarity for the cause of America’s downtrodden employees.
A report by the Committee for Better Banks reads like a tale of two banking sectors. The outsized wealth and power of Wall Street is reflected in salary rises of CEOs like Jamie Dimon, who in 2013 received a 74% pay increase making his annual salary closer to $20 million, even though his bank, JPMorgan Chase, was fined $20 billion dollars in regulatory and criminal charges. Meanwhile, wages for average bank workers are so low that almost one third of bank tellers in America receive some sort of public assistance. Over a third of tellers are living at or below poverty level in sharp contrast to senior executives of Wall Street.
Top right: the Wall Street protest in February. Below: solidarity action from Ireland highlighting one of the benefits of union membership. Solidarity action was taken by bank workers around the world – including Ireland – to illustrate the contrast between the terms and conditions of bank staff in the US and those in the rest of the world – and highlighting the difference being a union members makes. The Global Finance Workers’ Alliance consists of the Committee for Better Banks (CBB), the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and UNI
Finance Global Union (UNI) which have joined forces to campaign for better working conditions for finance staff in the United States and around the world. UNI Finance says US bank workers have not been able to express their rights to organise together in a union. This means that the employees don’t have a voice and are not able to bargain collectively for fair pay and better working conditions.
Be a Member Organiser for IBOA! Building the Union by improving participation and recruiting more members is vital to increase IBOA’s bargaining power with individual employers and with governments and regulators. If you share this approach, we would like to invite you to volunteer to become a Member Organiser in your area. As a volunteer Member Organiser, you will receive training and support from the Union’s Organising Unit to enable you to: • profile your workplace; • engage with members and non-members; and • ultimately build the Union’s strength in their area. You will also be able to participate in the Member Organisers’ incentive scheme – which will recognise your efforts in tangible ways. Not only is this a great development opportunity for you to become more involved in the Union – but it will also assist the Union to meet the many challenges facing our members at this time.
If you want to know more, please contact our Lead Organiser, Gareth Murphy in IBOA House or by e-mailing gareth.murphy@iboa.ie
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worldview Rana Plaza collapse – one year later Compensation for families still far from fair or adequate
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n April 24, 2013, at least 1138 workers were killed and over a thousand were injured in the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which housed 5 garment factories in the Bangadeshi capital, Dhaka. Investigations into the cause of the collapse revealed that the building had been poorly constructed in breach of building regulations and that workers had been forced back into the building despite cracks appearing in the walls the previous day.
Although a compensation scheme is now in place for all the families affected by the tragedy, the problem of securing sufficient donations remains as many fashion brands have refused to make a significant contribution to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund which is managed by the International Labour Organisation. Of 28 retailers linked to the Rana Plaza factories, just 16 have been confirmed as donors to the fund. So far there is just $7m in the pot, well short of its $40m target. Walmart has been criticised for offering a paltry amount to victims while other retailers – including Benetton and Matalan – which had used suppliers in Rana Plaza at the time of its collapse or since have also come under pressure to make substantial donations to the trust fund as their donations to other schemes to assist victims have been criticised as inadequate. Although Asda and Gap have not been linked to Rana Plaza, they have
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Donors who have publicly declared their donation to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund • Bonmarché • BRAC* (US$2.2m – includes donations from The Children’s Place, Walmart, Asda, Gap Foundation, the Walmart Foundation and other unnamed companies) • C&A Foundation (€500,000) • Camaïeu • El Corte Inglés • Inditex • Loblaw • LPP • Mango • Mascot • N Brown Group • Premier Clothing • Primark (US$1m)
Current balance in the fund The current balance in the Fund is US$3.2m, with pledges at US$3.8m, altogether totalling US$7m. The estimated amount required for all beneficiaries is US$40m.
made donations of $5m with Walmart, The Children’s Place and other unnamed companies to BRAC, an anti-poverty organisation in Bangladesh. BRAC has handed over $2.2m to the ILO-backed fund and is using the balance for counselling and rehabilitation for workers involved in the Rana Plaza disaster and to provide a “social safety net” for people affected by other workplace tragedies like the Tazreen factory fire of 2012. Meanwhile Primark has paid $1m into the ILO-backed fund and is giving $9m in formal compensation approved by the ILO to 580 people working for its supplier, New Wave Bottoms, which was on the second floor of Rana Plaza. “Primark, C&A and Mango have already paid,” said Alke Boessiger, Head of UNI Commerce. “There is no reason why Benetton and Walmart cannot contribute US$5m to the fund. “Brands sourcing from Rana Plaza have a responsibility to ensure all the claims can be met, by making a significant contribution to the Fund and declare their donation publicly.”
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Historic milestone in Brazil UNI signs global framework agreement with Banco Itaú
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he largest private bank in Brazil, Banco Itaú, has signed an historic global agreement with UNI Global Union Federation and its affiliates in the Americas.
The case against Qatar Global unions urge FIFA to act on abuse of workers preparing for 2022 World Cup
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new report from the Inter national Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) exposes how far Qatar, the host country for the 2022 World Cup, will go to deny workers their rights. The case against Qatar was published before last month’s critical meeting of the executive committee meeting of FIFA, football’s global governing body. ITUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, said Qatar is a government which takes no responsibility for workers and its response to criticism is focused on public relations. During a visit to the Al Wakrah Stadium construction site in Qatar, Burrow found 38 workers from India, Nepal and Thailand living in squalor with mattresses on the floor in makeshift rooms underneath the stadium seats. The ITUC estimates 4,000 of these migrant workers could die before a ball is kicked. “Qatar must change,” said Burrow. “FIFA can make a difference by making the abolition of kafala (the official denial of basis rights
Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary
Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the British TUC
to migrant workers, making them virtual captives of their employer) and respect for international labour rights a condition of Qatar hosting the World Cup in 2022. “If FIFA demands that Qatar abolish kafala and respect fundamental international rights, it will happen,” she said. Frances O’Grady of the British TUC added: “Working conditions are so bad in Qatar that on average one construction worker is dying out there every day. “FIFA should no longer be listening to the assurances of the authorities that all is well with the World Cup workforce in Qatar. “Its executives need to look at the evidence in the ITUC report and they will see that ill-treatment and squalor is widespread.” “If the organisers of the 2022 World Cup show no sign of acting to improve the lot of its thousands of migrant workers,” she added, “then FIFA must consider a re-run of the vote and moving the tournament elsewhere in the world.”
Banco Itaú employs over 80,000 staff throughout South America. “This global agreement is a significant breakthrough for our work in the finance sector,” said UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings, who was in Brazil to sign the agreement. “We have worked hand in hand with our affiliates and can be proud of our efforts.” The bank’s largest operations are located in five countries in South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay where Banco Itaú recently acquired the assets of the CorbBanca bank which has a branch in Columbia. Banco Itaú also maintains a presence in the USA, Portugal, Japan and Austria. It took UNI and its affiliates nearly two years of intense negotiations with the bank’s senior management to reach this agreement which will now secure the fundamental rights of the ILO Convention – including the freedom of association and the right to organize as unions to conduct collective bargaining. The agreement also guarantees non-discrimination on the basis of gender or race, while creating positive incentives for hiring indigenous people and disabled people. “The recognition of social dialogue is at the cornerstone of the agreement and now we have to put the agreement to work,” Jennings declared.
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safety feature I It’s your right to work in safety and security!
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BOA’s Safety, Health, Welfare and Security (SHWS) Committee aims to work with members and employers to create healthier, safer working environments.
IBOA has produced guidelines on your rights under health and safety legislation in the Republic and Northern Ireland. These can be accessed on the IBOA websites by following these links: • www.iboa.ie/knowyourrights/ yourrightsroi/healthsafety.html for the Republic of Ireland; and • www.iboa.org.uk/knowyour rights/yourrightsni.html for Northern Ireland. If you have any questions or concerns about health, safety or security in your workplace, please contact a member of your local health and safety committee in the first instance. If there is no health and safety committee in your workplace, please contact one of the following members of the Union’s National Committee: Łukasz Adasik (Bank of Ireland), Elaine Barker (Bank of Ireland), Carmel Curran (First Trust Bank), Paul Gilmartin (AIB), Eileen Gorman (Danske Bank), Paul Harty (Bank of Ireland), John Keaney (Bank of Ireland), Jaynette Stirling (UBG-NI), Kate Varley (AIB) or Billy Barrett, IBOA’s Senior Industrial Relations Officer. You can contact the Committee by e-mail at safety@iboa.ie or by phone at 00-353-(0)1-4755908 or 00-44-(0)2890-200130.
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nternational Workers’ Memorial Day (IWMD) on April 28 aims to remember all those killed through work while at the same time aiming to ensure that such tragedies are not repeated – summed up in the call by Irish-born US labour and community organiser, Mary Harris ‘Mother’ Jones, to “pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
Workers’ Memorial Day is commemorated throughout the world. During 2001 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) officially recognised Workers’ Memorial Day and declared it World Day for Safety and Health at Work. In 2002 the ILO announced that April 28 would become an official day in the United Nations system. It is also officially recognised by the British Government. This year the theme is ‘Protecting workers around the world through strong regulation, enforcement and union rights.’ Trade unions aim to highlight the need for strong regulation at national, European and global level. We need to stop companies in Britain and Ireland from benefitting from the lack of health and safety standards that lead to disasters such as the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed over 1,100 workers. We also need a strong strategy on health and safety from the European Commission to raise standards throughout Europe, while in the Ireland we need proper resources for enforcement and regulation in order to tackle occupational diseases and workplace injuries.
Safe jobs save lives
Workers’ Memorial Day aims to highlight safety at work
What can you do to mark Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28? Find out what is happening in your area on April 28. Check with your trades council. The IBOA websites will list details on the Safety News pages of any events notified to IBOA House. If nothing is organised for your area, why not get together with some of your workmates to mark the day? April 28 comes shortly before the European Parliament elections? Why not ask candidates for their views on the need for a strong health and safety strategy throughout Europe. If you are working on April 28, you might be able to arrange a minute’s silence in your workplace.
You could ask any public body in your area to fly official flags at half-mast on April 28 – especially since WMD is officially recognised by Government; Other possibilities include planting a tree or dedicating a sculpture or a piece of art as a memorial to workers who have been killed at the workplace or in the community. Or why not copy the poster on the outside cover of this magazine and display it on a notice board in your workplace. Let people know about anything that happened in your area on the day. Use hashtag #IWMD14.
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safety feature Resource pack helps employees to support bereaved work colleagues O ne in every 10 Irish workers is directly affected by bereavement annually. But grief cannot be left at the door when an employee comes to work.
Often managers and colleagues want to do the right thing but are unsure about how to support the person. Working in conjunction with a number of relevant organisations – including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish Hospice Foundation has created a series of resources and training programmes for businesses and their staff to help them understand grief, its impact on the bereaved and ways in which managers and workers can positively support a bereaved colleague. The pack includes six information sheets on topics such as What is Bad News?, What do I Say? and How Can I
Help? These can be downloaded free of charge from www.griefatwork.ie. The pack is the result of extensive collaboration between a wide range of employer organisations, trade unions and representative bodies, including: • Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, • Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), • Health and Safety Authority (HSA), • Irish Business & Employers Confederation (IBEC), • Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME), • The Wheel, • Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA), • Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), • Small Firms Association (SFA) and • Irish Management Institute (IMI).
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Valid at over 200 cinemas in the UK and Ireland
SPECIAL OFFER FOR IBOA MEMBERS IC Cinema Tickets Republic of Ireland: Adult €6.80 Child €4.60 Northern Ireland and Great Britain (excluding London): Adult £4.60 Child £3.65 London: Adult £7.00 Child £4.50
Valid at 26 cinemas around Ireland and over180 more in Britain to see any film at any time on any day. The majority of people living in the UK and Ireland are no more than 20 minutes away from one of the participating cinemas. For the full list, see www.iccinema.co.uk/ IC Cinema Tickets can be purchased online in the MyIBOA area of either of the IBOA websites – www.iboa.ie or www.iboa.org.uk. Note: IBOA accepts no responsibliity for lost or stolen tickets or for tickets which have passed their expiry date.
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cinematique Frankly speaking Fassbender as you’ve never seen him before
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ut next month is Lenny Abrahamson’s latest film, Frank, described by Variety as a “weird and wonderful musical comedy.”
Frank tells the story of a fameobsessed keyboard player, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who becomes the most unlikely member of a highly esoteric alternative electronic band, “led by the mysterious and enigmatic, Frank (Michael Fassbender), and his terrifying sidekick, Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).” Written by Jon Ronson (The Men who Stare at Goats) and Peter Straughan (The Men who Stare at Goats, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Frank is loosely based on Ronson’s memoir of his experiences as the stand-in keyboard player with the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band. Sidebottom was the alter ego of Chris Sievey, the performance artist, comedy original and cult musician who performed encased in an outsized papier-maché head painted with simple features before his death in 2010. While Sievey’s stage creation is the starting point for the film portrayal of Frank, Ronson and Straughan also draw
inspiration from other avant garde musicians, like Daniel Johnston and Captain Beefheart, whose legendary creative process with The Magic Band seems to inspire some of Frank’s interactions with his band – the unpronounceable “Soronprfbs.” Aside from the normal challenges of bringing a highly eccentric and troubled character to life, Fassbender has to deal with the further problem of conveying the subtle expressions and nuanced emotions from behind the fixed and somewhat vacant gaze of the mask. With directing credits for a film roster that also includes Garage, Adam & Paul and What Richard Did, Abrahamson is building a solid body of work as the leading Irish film-maker of his generation.
Above: Maggie Gyllenhall as Clara, Michael Fassbender as Frank, and Domhnall Gleeson as Jon in Lenny Abrahamson’s new film, Frank. Below: Michael Fassbender
In Frank, he is not content to settle for a quirky tale of eccentricity. Despite visual appearance of the film’s central figure, he is not a cartoon character – nor indeed are the other personalities in the band including burnt-out manager Don (Scoot McNairy), French-speaking bass player Baraque (François Civil), passiveaggressive percussionist, Nana (Carla Azar), and Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the almost paranoid theremin player. As the band’s most ‘normal’ member, Domhnall Gleeson offers some perspective for the film audience – providing a counterpoint to the surrealism of the others. His musical ambition is to create commercial but ultimately banal pop tunes – while the rest of the band pursue ever more abstract paths with no concern for popularity or financial gain.
15% off for IBOA members in Dublin, Belfast and Cork when you avail of your IBOA Group Schemes through the My IBOA area of the Union websites – www.iboa.ie or www.iboa.org.uk
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book worm Behan in the USA When Brendan Behan hit the Big Apple in September, 1960, he didn’t so much take a bite out of it, he swallowed it whole. Over the next three years, he hung with the Marx Brothers, feuded with Steve McQueen, and famously ignored Bob Dylan. From Broadway premieres to Hollywood parties, from talk shows to jail cells, Dave Hannigan retraces his steps in Behan in the USA: The Rise and Fall of the Most Famous Irishman in America. He tells the hilarious yet ultimately poignant story of the Irish playwright who became one of the most notorious celebrities in America. With March 20th marking the 50th anniversary of Behan’s premature death, Hannigan has written a forensic account of the Dubliner’s hectic time across the Atlantic, the love affairs with men and women, the constant rows, the literary triumphs and disasters, the abstinence and the excess. Behan in the USA describes the struggles of a literary talent on the wane, dissipated by drink and the circumstances of his growing international celebrity. The effort to come to terms with being treated as a peer by some of the greatest writers and artists of the time. The marriage coming under pressure from his love affairs with Valerie Danby-Smith (who bore him his only son, Brendan), and Peter Arthurs (the Irish-born sailor who became part of his entourage).
Behan in the USA: The Rise and Fall of the Most Famous Irishman in America by Dave Hannigan Paperback published by Ballpoint Press Recommended Retail Price: €14.99
Embracing The Ordinary
Embracing the Ordinary: Lessons from the Champions of Everyday Life by Michael Foley Paperback published by Simon and Schuster Recommended Retail Price: £12.99
It has always been difficult to appreciate everyday life, often devalued as dreary, banal and burdensome, and never more so than in a culture besotted with fantasy, celebrity and glamour. Yet many writers, artists, film-makers and photographers have celebrated the ordinary life around them, and many philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and neuroscientists have offered insights into the difficulties and rewards of paying attention to the here and now. With characteristic wit and earthiness, Michael Foley, author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity, draws on the work of these artists and thinkers, and encourages us to delight in the complexities of everyday psychopathology. Foley’s new book, Embracing The Ordinary: Lessons from the Champions of Everyday Life, brings fresh insights to such things as the banality of everyday speech, the madness and weirdness of snobbery, love and sex, and the strangeness of everyday objects and the everyday environment, such as the office. It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think. According to The Observer, the book is “a self-help book for people who are cynical about self-help books.” Born in Derry, Michael Foley has lived most of his adult life in London, lecturing in information technology for 23 years before retiring in 2007 to write full-time.
Douglass in Ireland Frederick Douglass arrived in Dublin in the summer of 1845, the start of a twoyear lecture tour of Britain and Ireland, to champion freedom from slavery. He had been advised to leave America after the publication of his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, an incendiary attack on slavery, now a classic of American literature. Douglass spent four transformative months in Ireland, filling halls with eloquent denunciations of slavery and causing controversy with graphic descriptions of slaves being tortured. He also shared a stage with Daniel O’Connell and took the pledge from the ‘Apostle of Temperance’ Fr Mathew. Douglass delighted in the openness with which he was received, but was shocked at the poverty he encountered. Frederick Douglass in Ireland: The Black O’Connell by Laurence Fenton provides a compelling account of the celebrated escaped slave’s tour of Ireland combines a unique insight into the formative years of one of the great figures of nineteenthcentury America with a vivid portrait of a country on the brink of famine. Fenton’s earlier works include The Young Ireland Rebellion and Limerick (2010) and Palmerston and The Times: Foreign Policy, the Press and Public Opinion in MidVictorian Britain (2012).
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Frederick Douglass in Ireland: The Black O’Connell by Laurence Fenton Paperback published by The Collins Press Recommended Retail Price: €14.99
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wherefore art?
Brick’n’mix
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ublin’s Ambassador Theatre is hosting the worldrenowned exhibition, The Art of the Brick, for a limited run until June 15. Over seventy art sculptures created from more than a million Lego bricks will be on display. These one-of-a-kind brick sculptures are the work of US artist, Nathan Sawaya. The Art of the Brick has been proclaimed by US TV news channel, CNN, as one of the world’s ten must-see exhibitions. The artworks on display will be large-scale sculptures, many of which are human figures, but also includes a T-Rex skeleton constructed from over 80,000 Lego bricks that measures over six metres in length. In addition, visitors will have a chance to see Sawaya’s recent interpretations of some of the world’s most famous artworks, such as the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Girl with a Pearl Earring.
The Art of the Brick has already attracted millions of visitors worldwide in New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Shanghai and Singapore. Nathan Sawaya, whose previous career was as a successful corporate lawyer, started playing with Lego toys at an early age and just never stopped creating. “I use Lego bricks as my medium because I enjoy seeing people’s reactions to artwork created from something with which they are familiar. Everyone can relate to it since it is a toy that many children have at home. I want to elevate this simple plaything to a place it has never been before. “I also appreciate the cleanliness of the medium. The right angles. The distinct lines. As so often in life, it is a matter of perspective. Up close, the shape of the brick is distinctive. But from a distance, those right angles and distinct lines change to curves.”
Handling Change A history of IBOA Published by the Collins Press and written by Paul Rouse and Mark Duncan, Handling Change was specially commissioned by the Union. The evolution of the IBOA offers a fascinating picture of Ireland – not least of how banking moved from a thoroughly conservative industry to one so reckless as to bankrupt the Irish State. IBOA has a limited number of copies of the book for sale to members at the special discount price of E10 or £8 (including postage and packing). To order up to two copies at the special discount price, please send your name, address, the number of copies required and your IBOA membership number – together with a cheque or postal order for the appropriate amount to IBOA History Orders at IBOA House, Stephen Street Upper, Dublin 8 or e-mail history@iboa.ie.
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prize crossword A prize of €50 will be awarded to the first entry drawn from our post bag after the closing date. 1
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Across: 1. Ostrich; 5. Feather; 10. Flay; 11. Obediently; 12. Amulet; 13. Bilberry; 14. Increased; 16. Liver; 17. Catch; 19. Challenge; 24. Bachelor; 25. Naming; 27. Microphone; 28. Acre; 29. Referee 30. Entitle.
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Down: 2. Solomon; 3. Royal; 4. Croatia; 6. Edible; 7. Tangerine; 8. Enlarge; 9. Feeble; 15. Racehorse; 18. Avarice; 20. Horror; 21. Lantern; 22. General; 23. Elapse; 26. Miami.
A prize of €50 will be given to the sender of the first correct entry drawn from our post bag on June 1. Entries should be sent to Crossword, Spectrum, IBOA The Finance Union, IBOA House, Stephen Street Upper, Dublin 8. A photocopy of the grid is acceptable if you prefer not to cut up the magazine.
The winning entry for the prize crossword competition in the last issue was submitted by Marie McGarvey of Bangor, Co. Down.
10% of all products and services for IBOA members and their families. For more information, check out the IBOA Group Scheme in the My IBOA section of the IBOA websites. 42
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picture board
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Use the first letter of the surnames of each of the seven celebrities pictured to spell out the surname of a famous statesman. Answers on a post card, please, with your name, postal address, e-mail address and IBOA membership number to Picture Board, Spectrum, IBOA The Finance Union, IBOA House, Stephen Street Upper, Dublin 8. A prize of E30 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct entry drawn from our post bag on June 1. The winner of the last Picture Board quiz was Michael Power of Waterford City. The answers to the seven clues were Blanchett, Evans, Yeats, Ono, Neeson, Cruz, Evans - giving the name, Beyonce (Apologies for describing this as Ms. Knowles’ surname).
sudoku A prize of €30 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct entry drawn from our post bag on June 1. All entries should be sent to Sudoku, Spectrum, IBOA The Finance Union, IBOA House, Stephen Street Upper, Dublin 8. You can submit your entry on a photocopy of the grid – if you prefer not to cut up the magazine. The winning entry for the Sudoku Challenge in the last issue was submitted by Ian Webb of Glasnevin North, Dublin.
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game time with george hamilton One above all Six Nations triumph crowns O’Driscoll’s sparkling career
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ugby and the great Scottish novelist and travel writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, might seem strange bedfellows at first sight. Yet it’s a phrase of his that best sums up the most recent journeyings of his national team: to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
Springtime in Ireland has been a bit like that too. The return of the Six Nations championship has heralded an upswing in optimism – particularly in the odd years when England and France are due in Dublin. But thirty separate odysseys since the St Patrick’s weekend in 1983, when Ollie Campbell masterminded the victory over England that secured a share of the title with France, had left Ireland short in the Golden Fleece department. Just two championships in three decades, and twenty-four summers between them. True, they were mighty achievements. Michael Kiernan’s last-minute drop goal in 1985 not only beat England but secured both a Triple Crown and top of the table status for the season. 2009 was even better. France, Italy, England, and Scotland were all despatched before the showdown in Cardiff. Ireland’s win there two years previously had been bookended by Munster’s Heineken Cup successes in the same stadium. The happiest of Irish hunting grounds then. Cometh the hour, cometh another Cork kicker. Who could ever forget it? Wales had edged a point in front with just minutes to go. Ronan O’Gara – like Kiernan before him - dropped the vital goal. This one earned only the second Grand Slam ever won by an Irish team. It may seem churlish to remark, but in the reality of the great scheme of things, those were slim pickings. This golden generation never quite managed what their predecessors had achieved sixty-odd years before. Their Grand Slam then was one of three titles in four years, and there was a second Triple Crown to boot. Somehow, in this modern era, for all the
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hope, the ‘Holy Grail’ seemed destined only seldom to arrive. Contrast that with the success of the Irish in the Heineken Cup. Five of the last eight competitions won by either Leinster or Munster, with Ulster also making a Final. It was beginning to look as though that 2009 Grand Slam would be the pinnacle of the pyramid, that Irish Rugby would go on thrilling and delighting in the European Cup, but in the honourable old international tournament, they’d be forever coming up short. So as the New Year began its second month, we were back on our hopeful travels. This expedition, after all, involved trips to London and Paris, and they were always the most difficult peaks to scale. The opening fixture for Joe Schmidt’s team, against Scotland at the Aviva, would prove a useful barometer.
Ireland’s rugby captain, Paul O’Connell, wins a line-out against France – supported by Devin Toner and Cian Healy. (Photo: INPHO/ Dan Sheridan).
A disjointed autumn campaign had seen Australia depart Dublin victorious before the drama and the excitement of what very nearly became Ireland’s first win in history over the New Zealand All Blacks. Which of these Irelands was the real thing? Scotland, for their part, had been hammered by South Africa without scoring a single point, and they too had gone down to Australia, but they had notions about themselves. Notions that seemed to make the Irish nervy and uncertain, despite a try from Andrew Trimble that helped them to a half-time lead of 11-3. But with further tries from Jamie Heaslip and Rob Kearney, Ireland pulled away and finished comfortably in front, by 28 points to 6. So the perfect start, and the momentum could be carried into a second successive home game. They’d need it,
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over France in seventeen years and their first in the French capital for almost four decades. This would be a roller-coaster day. Ireland, England, or France – any one of the three could win the title. France against Ireland was the final match, with England, who’d walloped Italy earlier, ready to claim the prize should Ireland slip up. It would be a highly charged affair, with the outcome in doubt right up to the final moments, but three tries helped Ireland over the line. None, as it happened from O’Driscoll this time, but it was Ireland’s first win in Paris since he scored his three, and it won the Six Nations for the first time since 2009.
One of the greatest
surely, for Wales were coming. Wales, champions for the past two seasons, who hadn’t lost away in the RBS Six Nations in almost three years. As if to prove that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, Ireland were 13-0 up at half time, and went on to win by 26 points to 3 – their biggest margin over the Welsh in eight years, and the first time they’d won both their opening games in the championship since the Grand Slam season of 2009. The omens were good, hope evolving into expectation. The reality check came with the trip to Twickenham. There would be no Triple Crown this year. England saw to that. But what an epic contest it had proved to be! Just three points separating the sides at the end, it finished 13-10 in England’s favour.
But there was still a title up for grabs, and England’s win meant four of the six were level on points at the top of the table. Italy were next, back at the Aviva, on what would be Brian O’Driscoll’s final appearance there in the green jersey. Not only that, but he was making his 140th Test appearance, making him the world’s most capped player. He didn’t score, but he set up the two first half tries that started what turned into a seven-try rout. Ireland won 46-7. The stage was set for the grand finale on St Patrick’s weekend. Ireland in Paris, where O’Driscoll would make his last international appearance in the stadium where fourteen years before in his first Six Nations season, he’d scored a hat-trick of tries that helped Ireland to their first victory
Ireland’s greatest No. 13, Brian O’Driscoll, with the Six Nations Trophy. (Photo: INPHO/ Billy Stickland).
In its way, it was entirely appropriate that he should be there to savour this hour. He’d only just turned 21 when he marked himself out as potentially one of Ireland’s greatest. Now, with the book finally closing on his fifteen-year international career it can be fully acknowledged – he is right up there with the greats. Comparisons can be invidious, but collation does no harm. In the pantheon of jinking geniuses who have worn the green, he belongs with Jack Kyle and Mike Gibson, the two who spring most immediately to mind. A compendium of Irish greats would stretch way beyond those who’ve brought us from our seats with dazzling displays of athleticism, for where would rugby be without giants like Karl Mullen and Bill McBride through to the Cian Healys and Paul O’Connells of the current era – men who’ve constructed the stages on which the limelight could shine. O’Driscoll’s greatness reaches into the figures – the records he holds, the accolades he’s won – but there’s also the glory and the honour he’s brought to club and country – the fact that this colossus bestrode his game without a blemish, and departs it a role model for any youngster who would aspire to a career in professional sport. Brian O’Driscoll travelled in much more than hope, and enjoyed his many arrivals in the harbour of success. That he was part of Ireland’s 12th outright championship is a most appropriate valedictory salute – a final crown on a magnificent career. A great sportsman, in every sense of the word, deserved nothing less.
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stephen malone
Scott Adams and friend, Dilbert
Dilbert creator, Adams, recalls life as bank teller
Le grand clock-off Le travail finit à six heures A
new labour agreement in France means that employees must ignore their bosses’ work emails once they are out of the office and relaxing at home – even on their smartphones Recognising that by encroaching on their workers’ home lives via smartphone, employers could get around the 35-hour week introduced in 1999, French trade unions have negotiated a new, legally binding agreement with employer federations that will require staff to switch off their phones after 6pm. Under the agreement, which covers around one million workers in the technology and consultancy sectors (including the French subsidiaries of Google, Facebook, Deloitte and PwC), employees will also have to resist the temptation to look at work-related material on their computers or smartphones.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. — Bob Hope
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he secret to being a success is to be a serial optimist, according to Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. About three decades ago, Adams was on the verge of being fired from his job as a teller at a San Francisco bank because he was terrible at the detail-oriented work of keeping track of people’s transactions with a pen and paper.
Sweet truth
Biscuits are as ‘addictive as cocaine’
O
reos are as addictive as cocaine, at least for lab rats, according to a study by Connecticut College students and their neuroscience professor.
Much like humans, rats also start with the creamy centre, rather than the biscuits, the study also found. The purpose of the study was to look at the potential addictiveness of high-fat and high-sugar foods. Professor Joseph Schroeder and his students found that eating biscuits activated more neurons in the brain’s “pleasure centre” than exposure to drugs, like cocaine or morphine. “Our research supports the theory that high-fat, high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” Schroeder said. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”
…for lab rats!
So he struck upon a novel strategy. He decided to write a letter to a senior vice-president at the bank outlining all the steps the bank needed to take to improve. As a witty aside, Adams added that he should be considered for the bank’s management trainee programme as he had been robbed twice at gunpoint while working at the bank. The bank’s senior vice-president thought Adams’ ideas were “underwhelming,” but he liked his humour. A month later, Adams, was a management trainee. “Somehow I had failed my way to a much better job,” he writes in his book, How to fail at almost everything and still win big. Eight years on, a manager tells Adams that the bank has decided to stop promoting white males. He brushed up his CV and applied to the telephone company Pacific Bell. By then he had nearly completed an MBA through evening classes at Berkeley and he got the job — and a big pay rise. “I looked great on paper. Little did they realise that looking good on paper was my best skill.”
Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement. — Dan Quayle
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IBOA THE FINANCE UNION
april 2014
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WORKERS’ MEMORIAL DAY28.04.14 More than two million men and women die each year as a result of work-related accidents and diseases. Workers suffer approximately 270 million accidents each year and fall victim to some 160 million incidents of work-related illnesses. Hazardous substances kill 440,000 workers annually – with asbestos alone claiming 100,000 lives each year. One worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide: 6,000 workers die every day. More people die at work than are killed in wars. Source: International Labour Organisation
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