GROUP TREASURER at Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P) Michael Torpey is leaving the company eight months after taking up the job to become head of banking at the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

Mr Torpey will play a key role in the supervision of bank recapitalisations over the coming months and the State’s ownership of stakes in Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland that are held by the National Pension Reserve Fund Commission at the NTMA.

The agency has an increased role in dealing with the banks after the Department of Finance delegated key aspects of the Government’s dealings with the financial sector to the NTMA last month.

The transfer of the functions to the NTMA has alleviated European Commission concerns about political interference in the day-to-day running of the banks.

Mr Torpey was group treasurer at Irish Permanent, which later became ILP, from 1992 to 2000, when he moved to Ulster Bank and First Active as finance director, a role he left in November 2007. He rejoined ILP last July after a stint as a consultant, which included work at the Financial Regulator.

Kevin Murphy, chief executive of ILP, expressed his disappointment at Mr Torpey’s departure but said that he appreciated “the significance of the role which he has been offered at the NTMA”.

IL&P will appoint a new group treasurer in the coming weeks.

In another development, the National Asset Management Agency has appointed chartered surveyor Kevin Nowlan as a portfolio manager reporting to the head of portfolio management at the agency, John Mulcahy.

A former Irish rugby international, Mr Nowlan worked at Anglo Irish Bank, Treasury Holdings and his father’s property asset management firm, WK Nowlan.