AIB whistleblower allegations ‘raise concern’

Allegations of an AIB whistleblower who says the bank misled regulators in dealing with corporate loans in arrears raises far wider concerns beyond the specifics of the case, the country’s leading expert on banking and corporate governance said.

Eugene McErlean — an authority on the corporate and mortgage arrears crisis in Ireland who has written extensively for the Irish Examiner — said yesterday that regardless of the veracity of the claims by the unnamed whistleblower, the process for dealing with all types of arrears across all the banks was “defective”.

Mr McErlean said that Irish banks have been given too much freedom in driving the process internally and that the supervisory oversight by external regulators should be tightened considerably.