Central Bank sets out goals for three-year strategic plan

The Central Bank yesterday set out eight “high-level goals” to be achieved over the next three years. The goals are contained in its second three-year strategic plan under the governorship of Patrick Honohan.

Among the goals set out are the restoration of financial stability and providing support for economic recovery through successful exit from the EU-IMF Programme of Financial Support. The achievement of both goals will require a fully functioning banking system, the Central Bank said.

A second goal is to “reform the regulatory and supervisory framework to ensure risks to stability and consumer protection are identified and effectively mitigated”.

The importance of retail confidence was further stressed by the bank.

“Protecting consumers by challenging firms, improving firms’ compliance, promoting a better culture in the financial sector and helping consumers have more confidence in financial services” is among its eight strategic goals.

Resource intensive

Although the bank acknowledged that the successful implementation of the plan will require continued improvement in its human resources, it expects a gradual reduction in resources from 2015 owing to efficiency gains and the completion of key initiatives.

Following the outbreak of the crisis, the bank was given very large additional resources in recognition of how seriously the financial regulator had failed during the growth of the credit bubble in the years to 2008.

Separately, the Central Bank yesterday published a consultation paper on proposed changes to the basis for calculating fees levied on financial services firms for their own regulation.

The objective of the reform is to align more closely the amounts paid by firms to the costs of their individual supervision.

Other proposals mooted include introducing application fees for firms seeking authorisation to provide financial services and significant increases in levies on the credit union sector – the bank noted that a mere €1.4 million was paid by the sector for its regulation this year.

This amounted to just 16 per cent of the cost of supervision, a much lower percentage than other financial services firms.

Interested parties can submit comments on the proposals to the bank until February 22nd, 2013. All submissions will be published.