GO TO JAIL! Do not pass go, do not collect €200 million

The talk of ‘Economic Treason’ and calling for the heads of every banker are sadly starting to gain more and more traction, all of this is happening without concrete evidence thus far of exactly ‘who’ we are chasing and ‘for what’ specifically, largely the financial leaders greed is central to accusations of wrongdoing, and while greed may not be morally acceptable to right thinking individuals it is not actually a crime.

The FT recently had an article showing that executive pay misguided but that it didn’t make them criminal by nature, stupidity is an ‘equal opportuntities’ trait. It is important that every person in finance is not villified for what was something that all of society played a part in.

One question nobody is asking is ‘what part did I play in this?’, as a brokerage we are culpable, as a consumer I am personally culpable and as a citizen I will be paying for mistakes made on both …

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Beware of Expert Opinion from Promoters.

Lately we have been witnessing a resurfacing of property promoters in the press after a long period of silence. We want to reassert our advice that people should do their own homework before embarking on a large asset purchase be it property or otherwise.

How can you tell if it makes sense to buy a property? Our suggestion, as a financial firm, is that you talk to a financial adviser, you determine your own circumstances, you look at your own unique situation, and that you don’t base your opinion on what you hear on the radio or TV from people in the property business. The people who are restarting to champion property now are doing so under the banner that ‘it is cheap to buy’, part of the ‘cheap’ is due to exceptionally low interest rates, which invariably will go up some day.

That is not to say ‘don’t buy property‘, far from it, what we are trying to tell people is ‘make prudent decisions’, don’t buy any asset you can’t afford …

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Understanding Deposit & Lending Margin relationships

Part of the way you can get a view of a lenders margins is by looking at the deposit margins they offer because deposit margins usually reflect – at least to some degree – lending margins. This is because there are two sides to a balance sheet with any bank, on one hand you have deposits which you attract in order to fund lending so if you have low deposit margins that is probably indicative of having low lending margins (although not always!), however, if you have higher deposit margins it is almost certain that you have high lending margins.

NIB released their results today so we’ll take them as an example as well as Anglo Irish Bank to demonstrate the way that you can read into certain elements of how a bank is run from the outside and also on the type of business they engage in.

For a start you’ll need to know that average margin on a mortgage with many banks is less than 1% and that is from …

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Understanding Deposit & Lending Margin relationships

Part of the way you can get a view of a lenders margins is by looking at the deposit margins they offer because deposit margins usually reflect – at least to some degree – lending margins. This is because there are two sides to a balance sheet with any bank, on one hand you have deposits which you attract in order to fund lending so if you have low deposit margins that is probably indicative of having low lending margins (although not always!), however, if you have higher deposit margins it is almost certain that you have high lending margins.

NIB released their results today so we’ll take them as an example as well as Anglo Irish Bank to demonstrate the way that you can read into certain elements of how a bank is run from the outside and also on the type of business they engage in.

For a start you’ll need to know that average margin on a mortgage with many banks is less than 1% and that is from …

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Trade Unions and recessions, why they should not be considered.

Trade Unions, by definition are not academic organisations dedicated towards finding working solutions for the economy, rather they are protectionist in nature, specifically towards their members, which is why I am constantly surprised by the media leverage they achieve in various ‘solutions’ they arrive at for the current crisis.

To put it simply, Trade Unions are to economic progress as Kryptonite is to Superman. The wage deflation required to restore a working status-quo in our nation will not be achieved with increments, or guarantees of high wages, rather the inverse is true, now more than ever there is an argument for removing the minimum wage and allowing employment to find its own level, alternatively we can tax ourselves into oblivion and support artificially long dole queues and public spending.

‘Artificially’? How? Simply put, there are many people now who would likely show up to work for eight Euro an hour, and there are perhaps employers who would be happy to pay this to them, but the minimum wage …

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To buy, or not to buy, that is the question

The usual questions seem to float around Dublin every time I am out and about: is there life on Mars? Does my bum look big in this? Why hasn’t he called? Lately all these questions have been shoved aside in favour of “am I mad buying a house?”

It is obvious to the simplest of beings that property values have dropped significantly over the last year to 18 months. Is this a trend set to continue? If so until when? No one really knows.

The subject of house prices pervades every atmosphere in Ireland; the pub, the LUAS on a Monday morning, the DAIL bar… to mention just a few. It compounds my suspicion that Irish people are still obsessed by property. This is deeply rooted in the Irish psyche, which many believe is born out of 800 years of English occupation.

Irish people know they want to buy property, however consumer confidence is so fragile, that people are wary of making such a big financial commitment which …

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The risk of mergers to consumers

There is much in the news about private equity firms and various banks being ‘in talks’ about how they may work together (translation: some type of potential merger of parts of the business or total merger). Every bank seems to be in the spotlight right now and rumours are rife while fact is thin on the ground.

Every headline of every paper carried a bank story today, it is almost like society has moved from its fixation with property to a fixation with banks and their core tier 1 capital. If we mentioned Basel II accord a year ago people would look at you funny, today that and other terms akin to it are entering daily discussion at an alarming rate.

There is (as of today) no certainty that banks are going to merge, fail, succeed, or do anything other than what they normally do, however, if we were to make an assumption that at least three or four banks were to merge …

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The shape of reduced credit in Ireland

The current market is one in which mortgage lending rose at it’s lowest rate since the mid 80’s, this is coupled with a property market which is going through a painful readjustment. The figures for how many properties remain unsold are being argued in the public domain with counts from as low as 35,000 to as high as 200,000.

There is no precise and accepted accurate figure and thus the supply side remains unknown, the other issue affecting the market is the reduced availability of credit on certain types of property (apartments in particular) and a more stringent underwriting process as well as a re-assignment of staff away from commercially gaining activity into collections and arrears departments.

What can we expect to see from lenders in the near future? We will discuss some of the possible trends that may start to come into the market.

1. Lenders introducing fees: This is not a ‘fee’ in the traditional sense, such as ‘account fees’ this is a fee paid to them as an …

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Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates are normally described as a percentage, be it 5% or 3.98% the important thing to remember is that it merely interprets the cost of that credit to you as a financial debtor to the provider. When you compare rates it is also important to have an understanding of where they came from.

For instance, which rate is better an ECB (European Central Bank) tracker of 5% or a standard variable of 5%? They are both the same numerically but the tracker has a guaranteed margin the SVR (standard variable rate) does not so if the ECB change rates, for instance the way they cut rates in mid-October the standard variable might not come down the full 0.5%.

To be fair most banks have decided to pass on the ‘full’ rate cut, but what they had done in the interim of rate movements was to increase the margin on their SVR’s when the ECB was actually standing still between June of 07′ and …

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Financial Regulator probe into mortgage brokers & estate agents.

Yesterday the Indo had a front page story about brokers and estate agents could potentially ‘rip-off’ customers. This obviously affects the whole industry because it means that brokers and estate agents in general are sullied in the process and obviously the article was highly upsetting for many, but that doesn’t mean it was not fair and balanced.

It is especially difficult for any broker to stomach reports that say their industry is guilty of wrongdoing, but the actual solution must be for broker to be the most vociferous proponents of ensuring an investigation is completed and we must also lobby for strong retribution to any firm caught doing wrong if we are to be taken seriously by consumers.

The danger as I see it is that anything short of harsh punishment will only send out the message that yet again there is a ‘financial firm getting away with it’. The Financial Services Ombudsman’s most public moment was when they failed to have a judgement against Davy Stockbrokers adhered to in the High Court costing the tax payer hundreds of thousands …

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