Banking
Richie Boucher: Time for Irish banks to step up and replace Ulster Bank’s business lending
The former Bank of Ireland chief executive said competition in the SME lending market should be much stronger
Irish lenders need to compete much harder for business customers to better serve the SME market and plug a gap left by Ulster Bank, Richie Boucher has warned.
The former Bank of Ireland chief executive said competition in the business banking market was weaker than it should be and added that Permanent TSB, in particular, would stand to benefit from increasing its lending to small and medium-sized firms.
“People talk a lot about the mortgage market, I think the real competition for the future of the economy is in the business banking market,” Boucher, the current CRH chairman, told the Business Post.
