Going back to the ‘Big Two’ in banking is not good news

For some time now it has been possible to identify a distinct pattern in our farming and broader agri-food sector: The reputation of our food and farmers, and the dynamism of our food companies’ exporting capacity is being hampered by an inability to get our domestic policy ‘ducks’ in a row.

To a degree, doing this is effectively beyond our domestic policy capacity. A perfect example of this is the decision of Rabobank and Danske to pull the retail banking plug on ACC and National Irish Banks respectively, with the implications for farm loans and credit that must inevitably follow.

The decision to effectively close these banks has been made by overseas financial owners and is being made on an absolutely clear business basis. The problem ICMSA has is that it means the number of banks whom farmers can approach for the credit necessary to, for instance, expand production post-2015 has now been severely curtailed. We are reverting to a ‘two-and-a-half’ banks model that removes competition we desperately need in terms of credit availability and charges.