The country’s financial institutions are getting a good kicking — perhaps deservedly so.

Banks involved in the tracker mortgage scandal are expected to make fresh pledges to compensate affected customers after the Government gave company bosses a dressing down over “dragging their feet”.

People have killed themselves after banks denied them their entitlement to a low-cost tracker mortgage, victims of the scandal have claimed.

Permanent TSB has been fined almost €2.5m by the ECB’s banking supervision arm for breaching liquidity requirements at certain points in the last two years, writes Geoff Percival.

ONE of the country’s largest financial advisory firms, Deloitte, has committed to a new, long-term lease on its upgraded Cork city centre offices.

Two years ago, when we launched the Fair Mortgage Rates Campaign, Irish borrowers were paying 4.5% compared to an average Eurozone rate of 2.64% — a difference of 1.86%.

Ulster Bank has said it expects to have more clarity on the scale of its tracker mortgage redress programme by the end of the year, for which it has set aside €118m in compensation provisions.

Banco Santander has made an offer to take over Royal Bank of Scotland’s Williams & Glyn business, according to sources, as part of a long-standing plan to grow its market share in Britain.

The Department of Social Protection is investigating how an internal technical issue meant 73,600 welfare payments were delayed yesterday, with some not likely to be paid until today.

An overall rent of €100,000 a year is sought for the ground and first floors of “the best pitch in Douglas.”

Plans for the €10m sale of a part-completed Cork City centre hotel building to the Dalata Hotel Group are well advanced, according to market sources.

Santander UK is reportedly considering a surprise bid for 300 Royal Bank of Scotland branches in the UK after pulling out of the same deal three years ago.

Lloyds Banking Group has added £1.4bn to its bill for compensating customers mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

TSB’s takeover by Spanish bank Banco de Sabadell has been sealed after UK City regulators gave the £1.7bn deal the green light.

Bank chiefs are set to be quizzed today on how they propose to offer families with variable rate mortgages a reprieve or otherwise face the threat of Government action.

Permanent TSB plans to raise €525m of capital to bolster its balance sheet after failing European stress tests last year.

European indices ended the week mostly higher, with Ireland 1.1% better off, outperforming the region. Greece closed 2.7% lower after the German Bundestag approved the four-month extension of the bailout programme. Of note, there were rumours circulating late in the afternoon that Piraeus Bank ATMs in Athens were running out of cash, a rumour swiftly denied by its chief financial officer.

The proposed conversion of a former bank building in the Cork suburb of Douglas to a Wetherspoon’s pub is the subject of a further information request from planners. 

Pub giant JD Wetherspoon has said it may open an outlet in Waterford by the end of this year following its recent acquisition of two prominent city centre sites, with 40 jobs linked to the move.

Permanent TSB has announced a series of interest rate cuts of between 0.35% and 0.42% to its mortgage products for new customers as it attempts to gain a bigger slice of the market.

A terrified llama on the loose in a town just outside Manchester managed to evade capture for six hours before being safely guided back home.

Permanent TSB today unveils two new lending products that it hopes will help in 2015 to more than double the value of personal loans given to customers this year.

US billionaire Wilbur Ross, who made a €500m profit buying shares in Bank of Ireland at the height of the country’s financial crisis, has ruled out investing in Permanent TSB, the only Irish lender to fail European stress tests last month.

Irish banks must tread carefully before they begin to write back provisions on bad loans as a result of a recovering property market and not bow to demands to bolster profits, a senior official at the Central Bank said yesterday.

The Department of Finance has no plans to change the status of deferred tax assets even though it could greatly boost the value of AIB and, to a lesser extent, Permanent TSB.

Permanent TSB is likely to tap private investors before AIB early next year, though there is little chance that both state-owned banks will weigh on each other’s prospects of raising equity, according to analysts.

Irish state-owned mortgage lender Permanent TSB (PTSB) has appointed Deutsche Bank to advise it on its future return to private ownership, the bank said yesterday.

Permanent TSB yesterday announced it had closed the sale of a €215m tranche of loans held by its UK subsidiary CHL.

Lloyds Banking Group's stake in TSB has been cut to 50% after its latest sale of shares in the lender raised £161m for the banking giant.

The battle for Scotland’s future is on a knife edge but is "moving in the direction of Yes", the country’s deputy first minister said, as two separate polls gave the No campaign the narrowest of leads.

Police in England investigating an armed raid on a bank have arrested a man.

Police are hunting a pensioner who tried to hold up a bank at gun point.

Operating losses (before exceptional items) at Permanent tsb fell 62% to €171m in the first half of this year, compared to €449m in the same period in 2013.

TSB, which recently floated on the London Stock Exchange, is reportedly planning to bid for £1.4bn (€1.8bn) worth of British state-owned mortgages.

Britain’s regulators have given the green light to five new banks since easing rules a year ago for new entrants to challenge the handful of dominant lenders.

Shares in TSB rose by as much as 15% today as the lender returned to the stock market after nearly two decades.

Tesco is set to take on the UK's banking giants as it launches its first current account with a swipe at the “ridiculously poor value” offered by rivals.

Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group has priced the stock market listing of its TSB business at below book value, aiming to attract investors amid a flurry of new issues and make progress on a much-delayed, costly sale.

TSB will return to the British stock market for the first time in nearly two decades next month after taxpayer-backed owner Lloyds Banking Group announced its long-awaited flotation.

Bord Gáis is checking out of several of its office spaces on Cork city’s Lapps Quay — just as Cork City Council prepares a €2m quay upgrade, to include the €800,000 purchase of the old Cork Savings Bank at 1 Lapps Quay.