B of I chief says housing market concerns 'overdone'

Concerns expressed by some commentators over Ireland's housing market are "totally overdone" and the slowdown in house prices is a positive development, according to Bank of Ireland chief executive, Brian Goggin.

"The previous growth was not sustainable and the slowdown will have a positive impact on sustainability in the medium term," he told shareholders at the bank's annual general meeting (agm).

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Goggin said the bank was seeing no signals of problems in any segments of its loan book, including mortgages, overdrafts, personal loans and credit card loans.

"Two-thirds of the mortgages we provide are to our own customers so we have their credit card account, we have their operating account and we don't see any evidence at all of any difficulty or issues in terms of meeting obligations and we have a very good barometer on it, so our finger is right on the pulse. I think the comments are very overdone in terms of the mortgage market outlook."

Around 47 per cent of the bank's total lending is in mortgages and it holds a 19.3 per cent share of the Irish mortgage market, yet the bank repossessed just two homes last year, he said. Bank of Ireland was a prudent and cautious bank from a risk perspective, said Mr Goggin.

He said the banking sector was not responsible for fuelling the previous unsustainable levels of price rises through 100 per cent mortgages.

"There is nothing wrong with 100 per cent mortgages; it is all down to the capacity of the individual to honour that level of obligation," he said.

"Our experience has been influenced by stress-testing to assess the capacity of borrowers to meet debt service at higher interest rate levels. We have seen no deterioration in the arrears profile over the past couple of years in a time of rising interest rates."

The bank's governor, Richard Burrows, told shareholders it continued to generate good volume and earnings growth in the first quarter of this year .

"Asset quality across the group remains strong. During the quarter, we continued to actively manage our capital in support of the growth in our business and our capital position remains strong.

"In our preliminary results announcement on May 31st, 2007, we guided low double-digit underlying earnings per share growth to March 2008 from a base of 144.6 cent in March 2007. Taking into account our business performance in the first quarter, we remain comfortable with this guidance," he said.

Shareholders criticised the bank's move to change its pension scheme and over the 58 per cent rise in pay for Mr Goggin, who earned more than €4 million last year. As discussions on the pension scheme were before the Labour Relations Commission, Mr Burrows said it would be inappropriate to comment.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Goggin defended his pay. "It is all a function of performance. A big chunk of my compensation just ended was to do with performance-based pay," he said.