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Bank of Ireland blunder; EY abandons grand split; and Eir turns to robots

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

Red faces at Bank of Ireland as it fumbled the transfer of around 35,000 mortgage accounts from KBC, leaving homeowners at risk of credit refusal. Photograph: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg

Dominic Coyle's face
Dominic Coyle
Wed Apr 12 2023 - 06:42

Bank of Ireland has left thousands of mortgage holders vulnerable to refusal of further credit after an internal error saw it failing to submit payment details on 35,000-odd home loans for the past two months. Joe Brennan writes that the mistake affects homeowners whose mortgages were sold to Bank of Ireland by KBC Bank as part of its plan to exit the market.

Meanwhile EY has pulled the plug on its much heralded plan to break up its audit and consulting businesses after partners at its key US business refused to back the Big Four firm’s ambitious scheme that would marked the biggest shake up in the world of accountancy for two decades.

The IMF has warned that the world economy is “entering a perilous phase”, with global inflation set to fall more slowly than expected a few months ago. Ireland fares better in the report than many of its peers, Laura Slattery notes. The agency is also concerned about ongoing vulnerabilities in the banking sector 15 years after the last bank crisis.

In his column, Andy Haldane asks why, after a decade of reform to ensure taxpayers would never have to pay the price of lenders that were “too big to fail”, have we had governments rushing to rescue not only banking giants like Credit Suisse but even modest players like Silicon Valley Bank?

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A controversial tax break for multinational executives to keep the Republic’s lucrative aircraft leasing business flying, accountants PwC says. It wants the tax break to apply for longer, cover a wider range of executives and include cover for accommodation costs and relief from PRSI and USC on top of existing income tax benefits, writes Barry O’Halloran

Over at Eir, the company with a history of dire customer service has turned to robot technology to try to get a grip on things. Since deploying the technology which handles basic queries that account for one in five calls, Eir tells Ciara O’Brien that call waiting times have fallen below three minutes on average.

Figures from online marketplace Donedeal.ie show the cost of buying a used car has jumped by almost 80 per cent since before the pandemic, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has been shopping in that market. And prices are accelerating again this year after moderating through 2022, writes Conor Pope.

Speaking of financial shocks, a Waterford hotel has been ordered to pay a junior cook €20,000 over its failure to properly investigate sexual harassment by the hotel’s executive chef that the Workplace Relations Commission found amounted to assault. Stephen Bourke is at the WRC.

Recovering airline software group Datalex is exploring its options after agreeing an extension of loan repayments with major shareholder Dermot Desmond Tireragh on €10 million of debt that will see the interest it pays jumping from 10 per cent to 15.5 per cent and, ultimately, to 18 per cent. Joe Brennan has the details.

And Conor Pope writes that homeowners are ignoring reminders to adjust their building insurance cover to account for surging building costs, with one in six claims to leading insurer Aviva not being paid in full as a result.

Plans by 853 social and affordable homes on Dublin’s Oscar Traynor Road have been thrown into doubt after two appeals against the city council’s approval of the Glenveagh Homes scheme were lodged with An Bord Pleanála. Gordon Deegan reports.

Gordon also looks at the accounts of Cork-based Mycro Sportswear, which supplies helmets to many of the country’s top hurlers, and has enjoyed a post-Covid bounce last year with profits jumping 28 per cent.

Sports retailer Decathlon has named Elena Pecos as the new chief executive of its Irish business, capping an ascent that began with a role as sales assistant in one of the group’s Spanish stores, writes Colin Gleeson. Her appointment comes as Decathlon prepares to open its new Limerick store.

In Commercial Property, warehousing specialist Mountpark has pre-let the sixth unit at its €300 million Baldonnell development to Danish-owned logistics group DSV, with the final unit at the site currently under offer. Ronald Quinlan has the details.

Finally, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) showed no one is immune to sanction as it sacked director general Tony Danker with immediate effect following an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the employers’ organisation.

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