Ulster Bank chief executive Jim Brown clearly has a sense of humour. On Tuesday, he attended the eighth Annual Sustainability Forum in Dublin Castle where he gratefully picked up a framed certificate from Tánaiste Joan Burton for Ulster Bank having achieved a “Business Working Responsibly Mark”.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, his team were busily working on a mea culpa statement to the record €3.5 million fine and reprimand from the Central Bank that was made public on Wednesday morning.

This hefty sanction relates to the collapse of its IT systems in the summer of 2012 that left up to 600,000 customers locked out of their accounts over a period of 28 days. It was a total shambles.

You might have thought that Brown would be keeping his head down, given he knew a slap was coming from the regulator.

Instead, he happily posed for photos with his prized certificate, which stated that Ulster Bank had met the “required compliance levels” following an independent audit.

Mind you, the award to Ulster Bank also tells us a lot about the value of these corporate responsibility accolades.

Speaking of bad timing, FBD is in the wars this week after a second profit warning in five months.

That dose of bad news did not deter publication of photos from the FBD Queen of the Land Festival in Tullamore, a Macra na Feirme extravaganza along the lines of the Rose of Tralee. Lovely.