Ireland holds talks on bank crisis with ECB
By John Murray Brown in Dublin and Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt
Published: March 25 2011 20:30 | Last updated: March 25 2011 20:30
Ireland is looking at a special deal with the European Central Bank to secure financial support for resolving the crisis in its struggling banking sector.
Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, revealed on Friday that talks were under way with the Frankfurt-based institution on ways to finance Ireland’s banks as they restructure.
Ireland’s banks rely on about €100bn ($140bn) in ECB loans and €70bn in liquidity provided by the Irish central bank.
“Emergency funding is obviously critical but medium-term to longer-term funding would be much more stable and, obviously, would give a greater degree of credibility to the markets,” Mr Kenny told Irish radio. “That’s a case of dealing with the European Central Bank.”
The ECB had no comment on Mr Kenny’s remarks, though one option would be for it to provide a special liquidity facility for Irish banks undergoing restructuring. Any ECB response would not be unveiled before Irish stress test results due next Thursday, however, and would follow only binding commitments by Dublin to implement bank restructuring and recapitalisation under the existing European Union and International Monetary Fund bail-out deal.
The ECB governing council would also not want to be seen as responding to political pressure and faces restrictions on direct financial help for governments – which means Mr Kenny’s confirmation of the talks could backfire. But the ECB would want to stop Ireland’s banking crisis escalating and spreading to other states. It sees the need for a long-term solution that allows the banks to restructure and de-lever – and thus reduce their reliance on ECB funding.
Mr Kenny linked the issue of term funding to the need to shrink the banks’ balance sheets, in line with the terms of the bail-out.
However, the ECB “now accept that it would not be prudent to have an immediate fire sale of assets that would lead to further recapitalisation,” he said.
Bankers said ECB funding could finance a “warehouse” structure, in which assets would be transferred to a special purpose vehicle at face value, and either held until maturity or sold if markets allow.
“We believe that something like this will have to be part of the solution: there aren’t too many other options out there,” says Michael Cummins of Glass Securities, a Dublin broker.
Ireland’s programme for government agreed between Mr Kenny’s centre-right Fine Gael party and the centre-left Labour party said that “as an interim measure, we will seek to replace emergency lending to our banks with medium term, affordable, official financing in a way that can restore confidence among other potential lenders in the liquidity position of our banks.”
FT.com / Europe - Ireland holds talks on bank crisis with ECB