Irish woman to lead ECB team tackling soured loans

The European Central Bank's oversight arm chose Ireland's head of banking regulation, Sharon Donnery, to lead a charge on tackling soured loans across the euro area.

Ms Donnery, director of credit institutions at the Central Bank, is leading a working group on resolving loans in partial or full default across euro-region banks, Daniele Nouy, chair of the ECB supervisory board, said in an interview.

An average 12 per cent of loans across 123 lenders under direct ECB supervision are non performing, Ms Nouy said earlier this month.

The working group aims “to implement at SSM level the good work done in the Irish system” to reduce its amount of loans in default, Ms Nouy said, referring to the Single Supervisory Mechanism, as the ECB’s oversight arm is known.

She didn’t give a target for the reduction.

Ms Donnery was appointed director of credit institutions in March 2014, following the departure of Fiona Muldoon.

She has worked with the Central Bank since 1996 when she joined as an economist. She was fomerly head of consumer information and head of consumer protection, before becoming registrar of credit unions.

Bloomberg