The Ulster Bank's DIRT liability, based on the "most pessimistic calculation" of its internal audit findings for the period 1987-98, was £900,000 from 1986 to 1998.
The group has a relatively small share of the non-resident deposit market, estimated at November 30th 1998, to be 3.46 per cent. The bank did not carry out authenticity checks as a matter of course.
It informed the Comptroller and Auditor General that at the time of the opening of such accounts, it saw its responsibility as checking the customer's residency status, "but that thereafter it regards it as the responsibility of the customer to inform the group of any change in status".