There was no attempt to hide loans to Anglo Irish Bank's former Chairman, Sean FitzPatrick, or the refinancing of those loans, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has been told.
Anglo's former group financial controller, Cyril Boyd, told the court that he answered any questions the auditors had and would have answered any further questions if they had asked them.
He said he was surprised the external auditors did not query the arrangements.
Mr FitzPatrick, who is 68 and from Whitshed Road in Greystones, is accused of misleading the bank's auditors about multimillion euro loans to him and to people connected with him.
He has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges of making misleading, false or deceptive statements to the bank's auditors.
He has denied six charges of furnishing false information between 2002 and 2007.
Mr Boyd said the practice of refinancing Mr FitzPatrick's Anglo Irish Bank loans with Irish Nationwide Building Society began in the mid 1990s and evolved into an annual practice at Anglo's year-end.
He said it began as some of Mr FitzPatrick's loans were partnerships with other people, who were not directors of the bank, and there was a concern that their loans would also have to be disclosed.
The practice was described as sub-participating with INBS.
Mr Boyd said it was common knowledge in the bank.
He said there was never any attempt to hide the refinancing process.
And he said the Central Bank never queried Mr FitzPatrick's loans. There was no secrecy about any of this, he said, adding that the bank had to provide quarterly reports to the Central Bank in relation to loans to directors and the bank never queried why the figure would drop in the final quarter - when the refinancing took place.
Mr Boyd said he was surprised the external auditors did not query the practice in the first year or any subsequent year.
He said if auditor, Kieran Kelly from Ernst and Young, now EY, who was involved in auditing Anglo Irish Bank had asked him anything about the refinancing arrangements, he would have told him.
But he did not recall him asking anything.
Mr Boyd said the auditors had access to everything if they wanted it.
They were entitled to look at the accounts, he said.
Mr Boyd also gave evidence that he would sometimes give letters of representation to Mr FitzPatrick to sign.
He agreed with lawyers for Mr FitzPatrick that the former chairman would have signed 100s of documents on a daily basis. And he said if he had given him a document and said it was grand, Mr FitzPatrick would have signed it.
The former non-executive chairman of Irish Nationwide Building Society, Michael Walsh, said the refinancing loans to Mr FitzPatrick were approved by its board each year.
Mr Walsh said the loans were made on normal financial terms.
He said he did not think there was anything untoward about the arrangements.
He agreed with lawyers for Mr FitzPatrick that the loans were recorded in the minutes of INBS board meetings.
He said auditors would have had all the information in relation to Mr FitzPatrick's loans and he did not know of any queries from the auditors in relation to the loans.
He said the loans were repaid in full and INBS had not suffered any loss.
Earlier, former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes, who was a public interest director of Anglo Irish Bank, gave evidence of attending a meeting in December 2008, with Mr FitzPatrick and another public interest director, Frank Daly.
He said the issue to be examined at the meeting was a substantial increase in the amount of loans outstanding to directors in September 2008 compared to September 2007.
He said Mr FitzPatrick told the meeting it had been his practice for some years to refinance his loans with other financial institutions coming up to the end of the financial year.
Mr FitzPatrick announced his intention to resign the following day.
Mr Dukes told the court Mr Fitzpatrick indicated his principle reason for resigning was the issue of the refinancing of his loans.
