No Ulster Bank branches will close in Ireland this year, the bank’s chief executive in the Republic has confirmed.
It comes as the bank announced its withdrawal from the Republic over the next few years, after more than 160 years in the market.
“There’s never a good time to deliver news like this and I understand that it’s extremely disappointing news for both customers and colleagues,” Jane Howard told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“But now that the decision has been made, my focus and our focus will be on making sure that we complete this phased withdrawal over a number of years, in an orderly fashion, so that we do a good job for both customers and colleagues.
“What’s really important for today is there is no change right now, we’re continuing to offer a banking service, and no branches will be closing this year.
“(Customers) don’t need to take any action and we’ll be starting to communicate with our customers today.”
Number of years
Ms Howard was reluctant to say how many years the phased withdrawal process would take.
“I think it’s unhelpful if I start speculating but it is going to be a number of years,” Ms Howard added. “I think these things take time and we’ve seen that from the past.
“We’ve announced that we’ve reached a memorandum of understanding with AIB for them to acquire a significant part of the performing commercial loan book.
“We’ve also announced that we are in early discussions with Permanent TSB, as well as other full service banks.
“Those discussions are at the stages they are at, there is a lot of complexity to work through, but as we work through that, that will dictate and inform the number of years.
We’ve got time to support our customers carefully to transition to a new bank
“It is going to be a number of years and therefore we’ve got time to support our customers carefully to transition to a new bank.”
Ms Howard also said one of their main priorities is to minimise job losses in Ireland.
“In any negotiations, we will be looking to make sure that colleagues who are actively engaged in any part of the business, transfer with it,” she added.
“What I can assure them of, is that in any negotiation that is going to be a primary consideration.
“Where we are with AIB, we’ve reached a memorandum of understanding, and certainly it is a clear agreement between us in those negotiations, that all the colleagues that support that commercial loan book would transfer.”
Meanwhile, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has described the withdrawal of Ulster Bank from the Republic as “very unwelcome news”, but that it was a commercial decision.
The Government would try to work with the bank about the future of its staff and customers, he told RTÉ radio’s News at One.
Mr Varadkar said he wanted to reassure customers that when it came to mortgages, personal loans and business loans their terms and conditions could not be changed.
“So if you're meeting your repayments those terms and conditions cannot be changed,” he said.
Ulster Bank’s withdrawal was going to be gradual and there would be no compulsory redundancies and no branch closures this year, he added.
When asked if the necessity for banks to have large cash reserves was a deterrent for new banks to come into the country, Mr Varadkar said: “new banks don't particularly want to set up in Ireland at the moment because they have to hold a lot of capital if they do so.”
In terms of competition in the banking sector the news about Ulster Bank was not a good development, he said.
