ABSTRACT
The four Northern Ireland banks, the Northern Bank, the Ulster Bank, the Bank of Ireland and the Allied Irish Banks, offer deposit, lending, money transmission and other services to personal customers very much as in the rest of the UK. Between them, the four banks have some three hundred branches and over one hundred sub-branches and agencies in Northern Ireland serving the needs of some one-and-a-half million people – much the same number of outlets per head of population as the clearing banks have in England and Wales. Northern Bank and Ulster Bank are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Midland Bank and the National Westminster Bank respectively: both subsidiaries declined to make independent submissions to us. (The Clydesdale Bank in Scotland is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Midland Bank but did submit evidence independently.) The Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks are incorporated in the Republic of Ireland. All four banks have substantial branch networks in the Irish Republic, some 950 branches in total; and the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks have over fifty branches in Great Britain. Thus the four Northern Ireland banks operate within three distinct legislative jurisdictions, though the legislative position of the banks as regards their activities in Northern Ireland and Great Britain has been brought much closer together by the Banking Act 1979 and need not concern us further except in respect of rights of note issue.
