IRISH LIFE AND PERMANENT SEEING SIGNS OF STABILITY - Irish Life and Permanent, which through Permanent TSB is one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the country, has said the number of people who are in arrears for more than three months has continued to rise since the start of the year. But Irish Life and Permanent said, however, there were signs that the number of people starting to get into difficulties with their mortgage repayments was levelling off. It made the comments in an interim management statement ahead of its annual general meeting in Dublin later this morning.
Sebastian Orsi, a banking analyst with Merrion Stockbrokers, says the statement reveals tentative signs of stability at the group, which made losses on account of its banking operations last year. He says that much of the future for Permanent TSB very much depends on forthcoming decisions from the European Commission on the restructuring plans for the rest of the banking sector.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has said that the Internet giant's situation in China 'seems to be stable' following its decision two months ago to stop censoring web search results. Schmidt, speaking at Google's annual shareholders meeting in California, said Google has 'maintained our business relationships and our engineering centres in China'. Google's relations with China have been strained since the Internet giant announced in January that it and a number of other companies had been targeted by sophisticated China-based cyberattacks.
*** A criminal probe into six Wall Street banks is understood to be underway to determine if they misled investors. Reports say the Securities and Exchange Enquiry may not result in criminal charges being pressed. In another move, the New York attorney general is investigating eight banks on whether they misled ratings agencies, resulting in risky investments being given low risk ratings.
*** Both the Dow and the Standard & Poors indices closed more than 1% lower in New York last night on comments from some large corporates that the recovery may not be as healthy as thought while official jobless figures seemed to contradict earlier reports on a recovery in the employment.
*** The euro remains weak on the currency markets this morning, trading at $1.2552, on concerns that austerity measures sweeping the euro zone will delay economic recovery.
