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EBS announce 200 redundancies

Tuesday, January 29 15:10:34

Staff at EBS, which was taken over by AIB in 2011, were told today that there will be 200 redundancies made as part of the group's overall restructuring programme.

AIB has said that there will be 2,500 redundancies made group-wide and that this latest batch is part of that programme.

The company has reduced its workforce from 800 to 400 in the space of the past two years.

The latest 200 job losses will be split equally between the ending of a direct presence on Irish high streets and from Head Office in Dublin.

"The EBS have yet to resolve issues arising out of the takeover by AIB in 2010," said UNITE Regional Officer Colm Quinlan speaking ahead of a meeting with management today.

"They are pressing ahead though with savage cuts that will end the relationship it has with customers, many of whom are having to deal with distressed mortgages and are reliant on the human contact that drew them to the EBS in the first place."

EBS has over 60,000 residential mortgages on its books and, according to recent reports in the newspapers, AIB is preparing to outsource the management of E13bn worth of its loan book in a radical cost-cutting move.

The 99pc state-owned bank is seeking proposals from private sector players in Ireland and overseas to take over the collection and servicing of this mortgage book as the bank battles to survive.

The move to use an outsourcing firm to run a large residential mortgage book by a pillar bank is likely to be watched closely by other banks.

The residential mortgage book AIB is currently seeking to outsource was formerly run by the EBS.

A statement from AIB said: "In 2012, AIB Group, including EBS, announced a voluntary severance programme, with the objective of achieving cost savings in excess of c. E200 million, which would equate to a headcount reduction of c. 2,500 staff by 2014."

"The voluntary severance scheme has been ongoing since the announcement and rolled out on a phased basis, according to business needs and capacity. As part of this phased programme across the Group, some EBS staff are now in scope to apply for voluntary severance."