Elderfield poised to take senior post with Lloyds - report

Lloyds Banking Group, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, is in talks to hire Central Bank deputy governor Matthew Elderfield, according to a report on Bloomberg.

Mr Elderfield, who said last week he will step down from the central bank in six months' time, is said to poised to take up a senior post in compliance at Lloyds.

Mr Elderfield (47) declined to comment, as did officials at London-based Lloyds.

Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan hired Mr Elderfield in 2010 to help oversee the reconstruction of the banking system following the property crash.

Mr Elderfield had served as chief executive officer of the Bermuda Monetary Authority between 2007 and 2009 and previously spent eight years at the UK's Financial Services Authority.

Lloyds has racked up £12.1 billion of loan losses in Ireland since its 2008 takeover of HBOS, whose precursor Bank of Scotland entered the Irish mortgage market in 1999.

Lloyds injected about €8 billion of capital into the Irish unit between 2008 and 2010, when it let its local banking license lapse and subsumed the loans into the London-based parent.

Royal Bank of Scotland has put £14.3 billion into its Ulster Bank division here since 2009.

Mr Elderfield, who receives a €340,000 annual salary at the Central Bank, led two rounds of stress tests of domestic lenders.

On his watch, the State has taken over five of the six biggest lenders.

About 25 per cent of all mortgages were in arrears at the end of last year or have been restructured.