Statement of bad debt liability may help alleviate crisis

THOSE highly critical of the banking mess argued there would be no resolution to the credit crisis until each of the banks fully came clean on their bad debt levels.

AIB, one of the country’s leading banks, if that is not a misnomer in the current climate, attempted to do that yesterday in its interim management statement.

The estimated bad debt hit of €950 million is substantially worse than market estimates but the revised estimate suggests AIB has stepped up to the plate by trying to tell it as it is.