Twenty year later: We're still waiting for real financial regulation

From the Attic Archives Irish Times 25 June 1994

Sir,

The concern expressed by the banking community at the prospect of regulation by the Director of Consumer Affairs could be well founded.

I recently discovered that my bank had been overcharging me for its services.

On the reasonable presumption that my experience was not unique and that there might be, as the judges say, a lot of this sort of thing going on, I wrote to the Central Bank suggesting improvements in the format of bank-statements.

I also suggested that banks, like other providers of goods and services, should be required to invoice customers for bank-charges before they dipped into their customers’ accounts.

I subsequently received a letter from the ‘Credit Institutions Supervision Department’ of the Central Bank, informing me that the Central Bank “would have no objections” if the banks were to revise their procedures.

No wonder the banking community is quaking in its well-heeled boots at the prospect of losing the protection of such an amenable ‘regulator’.

Yours etc.,

Peter Murray
Carrigaline
Co Cork

Points to note from this 20 year old letter:

The so-called Financial regulator did not regulate financial institutions at that time, it was a free for all.

The fact that there was no financial regulation whatsoever allowed financial institutions to engage in widespread criminality.

The decision by the corrupt political/administrative system to allow the rampant growth of our Wild West financial culture played a major role in the widespread improvishment of millions of Irish citizens post the 2008 crash.

And, most importantly, the exact same culture exists today. There is no effective financial regulation in Ireland.