Honohan: Anglo to be closed and deposits transferred

Anglo Irish is to cease as a brand, governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan has confirmed.

The name would cease to be used in the coming weeks, he said.

He also said the debt-ridden facility would be closed as quickly as possible.

But he conceded that this would happen over "a multi-year" period.

The wind-down would involve the transfer of its deposits, thought to be between €12bn and €15bn to other banks, most probably AIB and Bank of Ireland (BoI).

Irish Nationwide deposits are also expected to be transferred to the other banks.

The 1,253 staff at Anglo are waiting to hear how the confirmation that the bank is to close will affect them.

Some 393 staff had left the bank up until the end of June.

Earlier this year, they were given a commitment that there wouldn’t be any further job cuts this year. That was in March when the bank announced 230 redundancies.

The bank has a policy of not replacing staff who leave due to retirement or decide to leave for other reasons.

Last week, section managers were asked to assess their requirements in terms of resources needed.

The decision on whether further staff can be let go will depend on how long the wind-down is expected to take and what level of skills and manpower are needed to ensure this happens in an orderly manner. Two bidders are interested in snapping up the savings arm of embattled Irish Nationwide.

There are also fears for jobs at Irish Nationwide which has clocked up billions of euro in losses.

It has been kept afloat by a €2.7bn bailout from the State.

However, it does have €4bn in deposits and these will be transferred to other institutions.

The worrying question for the 400 staff is what happens to them when this happens.

Irish Life & Permanent, which owns Permanenttsb, and an international consortium including Cardinal Capital are both interested in acquiring the society’s deposit book. However, both groups would probably use their own staff to manage the book rather than take on Nationwide staff.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo