NYBERG 'EXCELLENT CHOICE' FOR BANK PROBE - The Government has announced that a recently retired Finnish civil servant is to head up the investigation into what went wrong with our banking system. He has been given six months, as well as access all areas, to examine events from the start of 2003 to the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank in January 2009.
But who is Peter Nyberg? His key credential seems to be 20 years old, but it's a crucial one. He is best remembered as an adviser to the Finnish Central Bank during a banking collapse in the early 1990s. In more recent years, Mr Nyberg was a high ranking official in Finland's Ministry of Finance.
One man who knows him is a former director general of Ecofin, Sixten Korkman, who heads a private economics research institute in Helsinki.
Mr Korkman said the Finnish bank crisis was one of the worst in the post-war period in Europe. He said many of the Finnish banks behaved irresponsibly, while a government policy of deregulation also contributed to its crisis.
He said Mr Nyberg was in a key position in the Finnish central bank at that time, and later moved to the finance ministry. Mr Korkman said Mr Nyberg was an excellent choice for the Irish inquiry, adding that he was a man of integrity and 'quite outspoken'.
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NEWS IN BRIEF AND CURRENCIES - Recruitment group CPL Resources says it has remained profitable this year despite difficult business conditions. In a trading update, CPL said it expected its profit for the year to the end of June to be broadly in line with market expectations.
After two tough years, and with employment in the economy still declining, it was nevertheless beginning to see signs of some 'limited' improvement.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has expressed confidence that the company will secure a licence to operate a website in China.
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