From Bill Hobbs:
The state and banks’ response is like using a hairdryer to thaw an iceberg

With over one third of all homeowner mortgages in negative equity, the Central Bank’s report on mortgage arrears for the first six months of this year hints at the scale of the consumer debt crisis.

Since this time last year [...]

From Bill Hobbs: Can looting – going bankrupt for profit – explain the gap between the haircuts suffered by Bank of Ireland and AIB versus the higher haircuts being applied to the two rogue operators Anglo Irish and INBS?
These two rogues are reckoned to cost the state close to €42bn in direct transfers of wealth [...]

From Bill Hobbs:
This mortgage arrears report was cynically spun, writes Bill Hobbs

Recommendations of this Government’s “expert group on mortgage arrears and personal debt” will be about as effective as a foot pump on the Titanic. Published last week, the group’s interim report leans far too much in favour of the lender and fails to address [...]

From Bill Hobbs:
The sceptics have been proved right, as NAMA is on course to becoming one of the largest debt forgiveness programmes ever devised, writes Bill Hobbs

When first told, the NAMA story was of a benign fairy godmother that would sprinkle pixy dust on banks and get them working again. In its second telling, the [...]

From Bill Hobbs:
The line between careful borrowing and unscrupulous lending is very fine, writes Bill Hobbs

In over two decades lending to ordinary people, I never once had someone tell me they couldn’t afford the loan they were looking for and not to give it to them.

Most people genuinely believe they can afford their use [...]

From Bill Hobbs: Some twenty credit unions are said to be in serious trouble, writes Bill Hobbs
With the credit union system in trouble, the Government must be able to arrange for the crisis management required, which may well include liquidating non-viable credit union operations. What’s needed is a special resolution system called stabilisation.
Published last week, [...]

From Bill Hobbs:
Yesterday the financial regulator published a paper setting out its stall for what appears to be the most comprehensive of behavioural modification programmes ever attempted in corporate Ireland.

Banks will be required to demonstrate how they will change their ways to behave and conduct themselves as good banks. Bad banks will be punished. [...]

From Bill Hobbs:
Any comprehensive banking enquiry must seek to understand product safety and their use by ordinary people as there is nothing to prevent another bout of abusive marketing and mis-selling of consumer financial service products.

Despite two reports into understanding what went wrong with Irish banks and their regulation, little effort has been expended [...]

From Bill Hobbs: Are Irish credit unions safe? 42% of people participating in an online newspaper poll didn’t think so. The credit union system is suffering from a progressive illness that may become terminal for many credit unions. As a concerned member and customer, you have no way of knowing how ill your credit union [...]

From Bill Hobbs: Government’s deceptive assertion the banking crisis was predominantly caused by external forces was blown out of the water yesterday by the two damning banking reports. Blame cannot be levelled at the feet of Wall Street. The Irish banking crisis would have happened without a global crisis.
It wasn’t complex – it was [...]