Refinancing Anglo loans ‘annual practice’

A former financial controller with Anglo Irish Bank has said he was surprised that external auditors never queried the annual refinancing of the bank’s loans to former chairman Seán FitzPatrick.

Cyril Boyd told Mr FitzPatrick’s trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that there was never any attempt to hide the refinancing of multi-million euro loans using loans from Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS). He said that it was an annual practice and was common knowledge. He said that the Central Bank never queried the loans to Mr FitzPatrick or the refinancing of them.

“If they had queried it I would not have any issue speaking to them about it,” he said. He testified that the bank sent quarterly reports to the Central Bank disclosing the total value of directors’ loans and they could have seen the figure dropping annually in the final quarter, when the refinancing was carried out.