NAMA to consider buying loans from Irish units of foreign-owned banks

THE National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) will consider buying loans from Irish units of foreign-owned banks under the country’s “bad bank” scheme, the Department of Finance said yesterday.

The “bad bank” law to be published this summer will focus primarily on six Irish-owned banks covered by Dublin’s state guarantee for bank liabilities. But NAMA will consider buying assets — ranging in quality from well-performing to soured loans — from other banks operating in Ireland, a spokesman for the department said. He could not confirm a newspaper report that NAMA officials had met executives from Ulster Bank, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, and the Irish unit of Belgian banking and insurance group KBC, and were expected to meet Danske Bank’s National Irish Bank.

Halifax and Bank of Scotland (Ireland), parts of Lloyds Banking Group, have also provided syndicated development loans in Ireland and could thus be eligible, the newspaper report said.