THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency (Nama) will assist in any way possible with the resolution of the difficulties arising from Anglo Irish Bank’s difficulties, Nama chairman Frank Daly has said.
Speaking before giving an address to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party at its Galway think-in, Mr Daly told reporters: “We are part of the process, obviously, of bringing certainty to this whole situation. If, for example, the regulator or the Central Bank asked us to see whether we can come up with some way of accelerating the Anglo process we will certainly look at that because it’s in everybody’s interests. The board of Nama, no more than anybody else, would want to bring certainty to this.”
Commenting on the work of Nama, he said there was “a greater air of realism” among borrowers than when the agency first started its work. “They are engaging with us now and, in most cases, engaging co-operatively and being very open, very transparent about everything. We are asking them: ‘what are your plans; how do you intend to work this out; how do you intend to work with us? If you work with us, we’ll work with you’.”
Mr Daly said Nama was “only part of the process of getting the banks into a healthy state”.
“What we’re contributing is, taking these loans, taking the deadweight off their books, giving them in return bonds which they can take to the European Central Bank or wherever, improving their liquidity.”
He said that, as a result of the Nama process, “the banks have €13 billion in liquidity that they would not have had three or four months ago”.
“We hope to have the loan transfer process completed towards the end of the year, maybe early into next year,” he added.
“We’ve reminded people the EU target is the end of February 2011 and we intend to meet that target.”