HAVING BEEN a vocal critic of the Government’s decision to guarantee the loans and deposits of Irish-owned banks last September (leaving his bank out in the cold), Bank of Scotland (Ireland) chief executive Mark Duffy took a more conciliatory tone yesterday when asked if the Brian Cowen-led coalition was handling the banking crisis well.
“The Government guarantee scheme was an appropriate response,” he said, adding that what has happened in the sector since then could hardly have been foreseen. “I don’t think we could have asked for too much more at this stage.”
On the concept of creating a bad bank here to warehouse all the dud property loans, Mr Duffy said like many other European countries, it is probably “coming to a cinema near us very soon”.
Mr Duffy will take his leave of the bank in late March or early April after 16 years. He said that, if he had his time over, “I would have done less development lending. But that would have seemed odd at the time,” he added.
Mr Duffy remains tightlipped about his future plans. “I want to move on . . . I want to take a bit of a rest,” he said. His period of “gardening leave” expires at the end of May. In the interim, he plans to visit Sweden, where his wife is from and where they have a house, and take in some skiing. A trip to Sicily is also in the offing. When asked about his compensation package, Mr Duffy said: “You can ask but I’m not going to tell you.”
Mr Duffy also said constant commentary that banks aren’t lending to people and businesses is just not accurate.
“There’s a lot of rot being spoken,” he said. “There is a fear out there in the marketplace and people want to deleverage. The demand just isn’t there. There needs to be some balance.”
