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Europe > Ireland

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Cover Policy Papers
Initial Considerations For The Review Of Charges And The Surcharge Policy
International Monetary Fund. Policy Development and Review Dept.
On October 11, 2024, the IMF’s Executive Board concluded the Review of Charges and the Surcharge Policy. The review is part of a broader ongoing effort to ensure that the IMF’s lending policies remain fit for purpose to meet the evolving needs of the membership. Charges and surcharges are important elements of the IMF’s cooperative lending and risk-management framework, where all members contribute and all can benefit from support when needed. Together, they cover lending intermediation expenses, help accumulate reserves to protect against financial risks, and provide incentives for prudent and temporary borrowing. This provides a strong financial foundation that allows the IMF to extend vital balance of payments support on affordable terms to member countries when they need it most.



Against the backdrop of a challenging economic environment and high global interest rates, the Executive Board reached consensus on a comprehensive package of reforms that substantially reduces the cost of borrowing for members while safeguarding the IMF's financial capacity to support countries in need. The approved measures will lower IMF borrowing costs by about US$1.2 billion annually or reduce payments on the margin of the rate of charge as well as surcharges on average by 36 percent. The number of countries subject to surcharges in fiscal year 2026 is expected to fall from 20 to 13.



Key reforms include a reduction in the margin for the rate of charge, an increase in the threshold for level-based surcharges, a reduction in rate for time-based surcharges, an alignment of thresholds for commitment fees with annual and cumulative access limits for GRA lending facilities, and institution of regular reviews of surcharges.



The series of three papers informed the Executive Board’s first and second informal engagements (July and September 2024) and the formal meeting (October 2024) on this review.
Keywords:
General Resources Account; Charges; Margin for the basic rate of charge; Surcharges; Commitment Fees; Precautionary Balances; Income; multilayered framework; fund arrangement; surcharge rate; intermediation cost; fund's liquidity; borrowing cost; Credit; SDR interest rate; Balance of payments need; Credit risk; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ireland: 2023 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This 2023 Article IV Consultation highlights that Ireland’s economy has shown remarkable resilience in the face of consecutive shocks. The Irish economy has displayed remarkable resilience in the face of recent consecutive shocks and is well-positioned to achieve a soft landing. Growth is expected to moderate to a still solid level in 2023-24, from a very high base, as tighter financial conditions, domestic capacity constraints, and weakening external demand weigh on the economy. Continued fiscal prudence is warranted to complement monetary tightening in sustaining disinflation and to build adequate buffers for the future. As fiscal policy should avoid adding to aggregate demand amid still elevated inflation, tax revenue over performance should be saved. The 2023 fiscal stance is appropriate. Fiscal policy should support growth-enhancing investment and broaden the tax base. The authorities’ decision to save part of excess corporate income tax revenues in two savings funds is welcome. Tighter financial conditions, persistent inflation, and rising vulnerabilities in the commercial real estate market with linkages to leveraged non-banks call for continued heightened vigilance of financial stability risks.
Keywords:
liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; inflation development; transparency policy; money market rate; quarterly balance of payments; growth-enhancing investment; Medium-term fiscal policy; persistent inflation; Ireland's economy; Housing; Inflation; Corporate income tax; Credit; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ireland: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Macroprudential Policy Framework and Tools
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
Ireland is a small open economy that is part of a monetary union and has a major financial system. Within the Euro Area (EA), Ireland comprises a relatively small proportion of aggregate GDP (3.4 percent), of which a significant portion is attributable to foreign-owned multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, the Irish financial system holds assets of EUR 7.9 trillion, over 18 times GDP. Since monetary policy is carried out by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the entire EA, macroprudential policy has the potential to play a critical stabilizing role for the Irish financial system.
Keywords:
bank funding; bank lending; CRE market vulnerability; lending to SME; bank sector; commercial real estate; Housing prices; Mortgages; Financial sector stability; Macroprudential policy instruments; Credit; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Contagion as a Dealmaker? The Effect of Financial Spillovers on Regional Lending Programs
Alexandra Fotiou
,
Alica Ida Bonk
, and
Georgios Manalis
The recent European sovereign debt crisis highlighted the critical role of regional lending arrangements. For the first time, European mechanisms were called to design financing programmes for member countries in trouble. This paper analyses how the risk of contagion, an essential characteristic of interlinked economies, shapes borrowing conditions. We focus on the role of spillovers as a channel of bargaining power that a country might have when asking for financial support from regional lending institutions. We build and present a new database that records both the dates on which official meetings took place, relevant statements were released and the timing of the announcements regarding loan disbursements. This database allows us to assess the defining role that announcements of future actions have in mitigating spillover costs. In addition, we study the design of lending arrangements within a recursive contract between a lender and a sovereign country. When accounting for spillover costs, arising from the borrower to the creditor, we find that it is in the lender's best interest to back-load consumption by giving more weight to future transfers in order to reduce contagion cost. Subsequently, we test and validate our theoretical predictions by assessing the effect of spillovers on loan disbursements to programme-countries and by juxtaposing lending conditions imposed by the IMF and the European mechanisms.
Keywords:
Regional lending mechanisms; currency-union; spillovers; spillover cost; loan disbursement; lending condition; loan announcement; lending program; Loans; Consumption; Credit default swap; ESM disbursement; lending terms and conditions; lending agreement; IMF statement
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ireland: 2022 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Informational Annex
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This 2022 Article IV Consultation with Ireland highlights that the economy has rebounded strongly from the pandemic. The financial sector weathered the pandemic crisis well thanks to high capital buffers and effective policy support. The impact of the pandemic on borrowers’ financial position has started to dissipate, but uncertainty remains. While the outlook is strong, uncertainty is substantial due to the indirect impacts of the war in Ukraine. Several pre-pandemic challenges remain: housing shortages, infrastructure, social and green investment gaps, and the need to strengthen multinational enterprises’ inward linkages to broaden growth and make it more inclusive. There is also a need to address the Global Financial Crisis legacy effects on the financial system and tackle the factors contributing to high lending interest rates. The fiscal stance is broadly appropriate. However, in the short term, two-way fiscal flexibility is needed to strike a balance between supporting the economy and containing inflation. In case growth disappoints, automatic stabilizers should be allowed to fully operate and fiscal space deployed, if necessary, through high-quality measures. Structural reforms should aim to remove bottlenecks, increase productivity, and reduce inequities. In particular, housing supply policies should be further strengthened, with a focus on boosting productivity in the construction sector and improving the planning and permit processes.
Keywords:
government support; money market rate; financial asset; liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; GDP deflator; labor market; headline inflation; Housing; Inflation; Financial Sector Assessment Program; Credit; Global
Cover IMF Research Perspectives
IMF Research Perspectives: Spring/Summer 2021
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
IMF Research Perspectives: Spring/Summer 2021
Keywords:
IMF research perspective; government spending multiplier; R&D effort; IMF CSF; central bank financing; COVID-19; Bank credit; Fiscal stance; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa; Europe; Africa
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ireland: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Ireland entered the COVID pandemic with reduced vulnerabilities and high growth, especially in multinational enterprises (MNEs)-dominated sectors. The pandemic has had a highly asymmetric impact on the economy. The domestic sectors contracted by about 10 percent in 2020 and unemployment reached 30 percent at the peak of the first wave, while MNEs continued to grow strongly, driving overall GDP growth to 3.4 percent. A swift policy response has been effective in mitigating the crisis impact and protecting households and firms. The domestic sectors are expected to partially recover in 2021, with GDP growth projected at 4.6 percent. Downside risks stem from uncertainties surrounding new COVID variants, post-Brexit trade arrangements, and likely changes in international taxation.
Keywords:
money market rate; liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; income support; policy support; cost reduction; COVID-19; Credit; Income; Housing; Europe; Global; Loans
Cover IMF Working Papers
Investor Information and Bank Instability During the Euro Crisis
Silvia Iorgova
Outside of financial crises, investors have little incentive to produce private information on banks’ short-term liabilities held as information-insensitive safe assets. The same does not hold true during crises. We measure daily information production using data from credit default swap spreads during the global financial crisis and the subsequent European debt crisis. We study abnormal information production around major events and interventions during these crises and find that, on average, capital injections reduced abnormal information production while early European stress tests increased it. We also link information production to outcomes: high levels of information production predict bank balance sheet contraction and higher government expenditures to support financial institutions. In an addendum, we show information production on nonfinancials dramatically increased relative to financials at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, reflecting the nonfinancial nature of the initial shock.
Keywords:
information production; safe asset; WP; reference securities; information-production ratio; banking system; debt crisis; rate of change; reference security model; unsecured debt
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Euro Area Policies: 2020 Consultation on Common Euro Area Policies-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Member Countries
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe socio-economic dislocations and hardship. Supported by an unprecedented policy response and by the easing of lockdown measures as the infection rate moderated, the euro area economy initially recovered strongly from the pandemic’s first wave. However, a large second wave and reimposition of containment measures suggest much slower growth momentum in the near term. The outlook is for a subdued economic recovery and low inflation, with a significant permanent output loss relative to the pre-crisis trajectory. Uncertainty remains extremely high, mainly due to different pandemic scenarios, including regarding the availability and effectiveness of potential vaccines and therapies and behavioral changes. Output growth is expected to be much lower through 2021Q1 than projected in 2020 October World Economic Outlook (WEO) but may rebound beyond then in light of recent promising news on vaccine development. The key policy challenge is to continue countering the pandemic while facilitating a robust and inclusive recovery, including by addressing the health crisis, containing economic scarring, supporting resource reallocation and transformation to greener and more digital economies, and limiting the crisis’s impact on inequality and poverty. In a downside scenario, sizable further stimulus would be needed.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; EU leader; recovery package; EU emission reduction goal; EU budget; increase private
Cover IMF Working Papers
Forbearance Patterns in the Post-Crisis Period
Katharina Bergant
and
Thore Kockerols
Using supervisory loan-level data on corporate loans, we show that banks facing high levels of non-performing loans relative to their capital and provisions were more likely to grant forbearance measures to the riskiest group of borrowers. More specifically, we find that risky borrowers are more likely to get an increase in the overall limit or the maturity of a loan product from a distressed lender. As a second step, we analyse the effectiveness of this practice in reducing the probability of default. We show that the most common measure of forbearance is effective in the short run but no forbearance measure significantly reduces the probability of default in the long run. Our evidence also suggests that forbearance and new lending are substitutes for banks, as high shares of forbearance are negatively correlated with new lending to the same group of borrowers. Taken together, these findings can help policy makers shape surveillance and regulation in a future recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keywords:
WP; risky borrower; outstanding balance; x Time; bank characteristic; borrower rating; interest rate; Time level; rating class; Loans; Nonperforming loans; Capital adequacy requirements; Credit; Credit risk; Global; Non-Performing Loans; Zombie Lending; Banking Regulation