The Margin is intrigued to note that Irish Life and its Belgian partner, Kredietbank, are now part-owners of a commercial radio station albeit indirectly.

Irish Life and Kredietbank paid £60 million for a 56 per cent stake in the K&H bank in Hungary a few months ago. Don't even ask what K&H stands for, it would take the contents of three alphabets to give the name of this bank.

Suffice to say that K&H together with the US group Emmis, which make up the Hungarian Radio consortium, has won a seven-year licence for a new radio station.

The Margin doesn't remember David Kingston in the queue when the Irish commercial radio station licences were being given out, but no doubt new chief executive David Went will be listening to the wall-towall pop on the Irish commercial stations with an unusual amount of interest when he takes up office next year. Though we don't see much synergy between rap music and financial services.