BANK OF IRELAND TRAILS QUALITY LIST OF 500 BANKS GLOBALLY - Bank of Ireland has been rated among the worst performers on a global list of 500 publicly-quoted lenders compiled by banking research firm Lafferty Group that assesses firms across a number of "quality and sustainability" measures.
The country’s largest bank by assets is ranked 496 in the 2018 Lafferty Banking 500 Index, having received zero marks for culture, customer focus and investment in staff, while securing favourable grades for the quality of its equity capital buffers, return on assets, and information technology (IT) overhaul programme, writes the Irish Times. AIB has been ranked within the weakest 30% of banks, at 353, with positive scores for return on assets, equity capital and liquidity dragged down by zero scores for culture, strategy and customer focus. The index, which started in 2016 and initially looked at the 100 largest banks across 28 countries, assesses firms across 19 metrics, almost entirely drawn from their annual reports. Tanzania-based NMB Bank, Indian lender Bandhan and South Africa's Capitec were awarded the top three rankings on the 2018 index, while Nigeria-based Unity Bank occupies the lowest position, marginally ahead of Missouri-headquartered UMB Financial Corporation.
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IRELAND REPORTS HIGH RATES OF ONLINE CRIME AS HALF OF USERS AFFECTED BY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY - Half of Irish people have come across illegal activity on the internet, according to the latest European Commission barometer.
In 17 countries across the EU, scams, frauds, subscription traps or other illegal commercial practices were found to be the most common form of illegal content encountered. In the other EU countries, hate speech or pirated content were more likely to be encountered, writes the Irish Independent. Subscription traps are where a person signs up for a free trial, or low-cost offer, and then finds themselves locked in to high-cost repeat payments. In a survey of all 28 member states in June, the vast majority of people across the EU agreed that arrangements need to be in place to limit the spread of illegal content on the Internet. Similarly, a large majority of respondents (85%) agree freedom of expression needs to be protected online. This comes at a time when criminals are using social media to check when customers are contacting banks about problems, and then posing as the bank in order to hack people's data. That's according to the head of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau, who said gardaí have had multiple incidents of this activity reported to them.
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AUGHINISH FIRM IN €44m PROFIT BEFORE SANCTIONS - The directors of the firm which operates the Aughinish Alumina refinery said as recently as mid-September they expected a solution to be reached with the US Treasury over sanctions imposed on the Limerick company’s parent.
The directors made the upbeat assessment in new accounts for Limerick Alumina Refining Ltd which show higher alumina prices helped the firm post a pre-tax profit of $50.6m (€44m), the year before the US imposed sanctions on Rusal. The return to profit came as revenues rose 26% to $658m in 2017. It had made a loss of $40.58m in 2016. The directors said the favourable environment for the alumina industry in 2017 had boosted earnings, says the Irish Examiner. The huge refinery in the Shannon Estuary was plunged into doubt after the US-imposed sanctions in April on Rusal which is controlled by Russia’s Oleg Deripaska and government ministers have been involved. The directors of the Irish firm, who signed off on the accounts on September 19, said the refinery was still operating at full capacity and since the announcement of sanctions, it has had increased sale prices and would continue to be profitable this year and in 2019. Staff numbers at the refinery were unchanged at 450, while staff costs rose from $50.35m to $52.8m. Directors’ pay increased from $1.1m to over $1.58m.
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HOW SMARTPHONE APPS TRACK USERS AND SHARE DATA - A peer-reviewed study of almost 1 million Android apps has revealed how data from smartphones are harvested and shared, with nearly 90% of apps set up to transfer information back to Google.
Researchers at Oxford university analysed approximately a third of the apps available in Google's Play Store in 2017 and found that the median app could transfer data to 10 third parties, with one in five apps able to share data with more than 20. This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny over how websites use the data they collect from their users, but little attention has so far been paid to the sprawling and fast-growing world of smartphone apps, writes the Financial Times. Reuben Binns, the computer scientist who led the project, said that because most apps have now moved to a "freemium" model, where they make revenues from advertising rather than sales, data sharing has spiralled out of control. Users, regulators and sometimes even the app developers and advertisers are unaware of the extent to which data flow from smartphones to digital advertising groups, data brokers and intermediaries that buy, sell and blend information, he said. "This industry was growing already on the web, when smartphones came along, that was a new opportunity," he said. "It feels like this legitimate business model has gone completely out of control and created a kind of chaotic industry that is not understood by the people who are most affected by it." Data collected by third parties through smartphone apps can include anything from profile information such as age and gender to location details, including data about nearby cell phone towers or Wi-Fi routers, and information about every other app on a phone.
