Ulster Bank chased Ireland's bubble with 100% mortgages - then left the Republic

In February 2021, NatWest Group chief executive Alison Rose announced a phased shutdown of Ulster Bank's Republic of Ireland operation - the end, after more than 175 years, of a bank founded by Belfast businessmen in 1836, whose George's Quay headquarters was one of the most recognizable buildings in Dublin's financial district. The BBC's verdict: for the past decade, the Republic operation had been an 'expensive headache' for its UK parent.

The damage traced to the mid-2000s property bubble, when Ulster Bank was 'an enthusiastic participant' under RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin, whose hubristic expansion drive ended with the parent saved from insolvency only by UK taxpayers. In 2003 Ulster Bank became the first Irish lender to offer 100% loan-to-value mortgages to house buyers; it also provided huge loans to property developers, including as main lender to Sean Dunne's ill-fated 375 million euro Dublin hotels purchase in 2005.

When the bubble burst, Ulster Bank suffered multi-billion euro losses and had to be bailed out to the tune of £15 billion by RBS - by then majority-owned by the British state. RBS began reversing Goodwin's overseas expansion in 2014, and in 2015 formally split the Northern Ireland and Republic operations, making the Republic unit easier to close, sell or merge. The shutdown followed Lloyds, Danske and Rabobank out of the Irish market.

Multi-billion euro property losses and a £15bn bailout from parent RBS before the 2021 phased shutdown

Ulster Bank chased bubble-era market share with 100% LTV mortgages, the first Irish lender to offer them, from 2003.

Concentrated developer lending - including a 375 million euro hotel scheme - left the book exposed when property crashed.

The Goodwin-era growth strategy put expansion in Irish property ahead of the bank's soundness.

The losses never healed: a decade after the crash the Republic business still had not recovered, leaving exit as the only plan.

Market-share bets made at the peak of a bubble outlive the market: the lender that led on 100% LTV left the country within two decades.

The remnants became a Northern Ireland-only operation reporting into NatWest's UK division - 'not so very different from where it was in the 19th century,' the BBC noted. Lloyds had effectively shut its Irish operation, Bank of Scotland Ireland, back in 2010; Danske and Rabobank also pulled down the shutters on the Republic.