BoI declines to name recipient of €11.3m secret loan

BANK OF Ireland has declined to name the former director whose business received an undisclosed €11

BANK OF Ireland has declined to name the former director whose business received an undisclosed €11.3 million loan discovered by the Financial Regulator in its investigation into directors’ loans at the guaranteed lenders.

The loan was made to a business connected to a former director of Bank of Ireland during the bank’s financial year to March 31st, 2006, but was not disclosed in the bank’s accounts for that year.

The bank restated the aggregate directors’ loan amount for 2006 to include the €11.3 million loan in the following year’s accounts, bringing the aggregate figure to €39.8 million from €28.5 million. A spokesman for the bank declined to comment.

The regulator would not reveal the name of the director or the institution.

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The regulator launched its investigation into directors’ loans at the seven guaranteed banks and building societies last December.

The inquiry was prompted by the public disclosure of the hidden loans to former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick who concealed his borrowings from the bank over an eight-year period using short-term borrowings from Irish Nationwide Building Society.

The regulator has found that none of the six other guaranteed institutions moved directors’ loans off their books to conceal them.

However, the regulator found that loans totalling €18.8 million to directors and connected parties had not been disclosed by the institutions between December 2005 and December 2008.

The regulator found six loans to directors totalling €329,813 had not been disclosed, while loans of €18.5 million, including the €11.3 million loan, to parties connected with directors were not disclosed.

The investigation found “inaccuracies in disclosures in financial statements” in some institutions which the regulator attributed to “governance and control issues” in the preparation of the disclosures.

“The Financial Regulator views these omissions and inaccuracies very seriously and will be following up on these matters with the institutions concerned,” it said.

The regulator’s report covered its investigation of directors’ loans at Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Irish Life Permanent, EBS building society, Irish Life Permanent, Irish Nationwide Building Society and Postbank Ireland.

The investigation into directors’ loans at Anglo Irish was excluded from the report as they are the subject of a separate ongoing inquiry.

The largest of the six undisclosed directors’ loans discovered at the six lenders was €148,000.

The regulator found that 70 directors owed €25.9 million to the six lenders at the end of 2008.

The largest amount owing by a director was almost €3.3 million.

The biggest sum owing by a director and connected parties over the three-year period examined was €55 million in 2006.

AIB directors owed the largest amount, €14.4 million, in 2007.

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell is News Editor of The Irish Times