Outsourcing ‘no defence for regulatory failure’

Fines totalling in excess of €5m were dished out by the Central Bank to financial services firms last year.

Eleven different service providers were fined in 2014, including Ulster Bank, which in November was hit with the biggest such fine ever administered by the Central Bank following an IT failure that left thousands of customers without basic banking functions for almost a month, in 2012.

The bank was handed a €3.5m fine with the Central Bank saying at the time that the issue threatened confidence in the retail banking sector.