No-one suggests the fraud-related loss of €789 million will sink AIB. But group chief executive Michael Buckley will have turned a few heads with his assertion yesterday that, despite the group's significant troubles, AIB would set "the standard for 21st century community banking".
With the most senior figures in the organisation facing serious questions about their stewardship of the group's affairs, the comments smacked of a clarion call without the clarion. At the very least, it was a brave stance to adopt. Contrary to expectations, the devastating lapse of control in the foreign trading arena apparently has not led to a shortage of vision in AIB. Bully for the bank.
Yet, apart from the natural inclination to look ahead to happier times when in difficulty, Mr Buckley may have been right to focus on the 21st century. It emerged yesterday that AIB's most recent troubles date back to the old century - 1997 in fact - when the bank's heady growth was diminished by those damaging DIRT and, earlier, Insurance Corporation of Ireland scandals.
Not that Mr Buckley was game for comparisons to drawn between AIB's latest travails and its earlier difficulties. There was no link, he claimed, although he accepted that questions could be raised about management control.
It was eyebrows that were raised when Mr Buckley suggested that the withdrawal of "a couple of hundred million" dollars from Allfirst deposits was "very small". Intriguing also was suggestion that the €1.15 million paid since 1997 to the bank's chief suspect, Mr John Rusnak, was not large. It begs the question: What is a large sum? And AIB made much of the €612 million in pre-tax profits recorded when the fraud was excluded.
But these are black days for AIB, which is reputed to be one of the most conservative institutions in the State. If one such affair in a generation is bad enough and a second doubles the trouble, the third is an awful lot worse than bad-timing.
Yet the bank still aspires to set standards. That's the vision thing, of course, The manner of seeing things - icebergs; stricken ships; musicians continuing to play. That sort of thing.
