In Tuesday’s Irish Times, writing about the recent announcement of the closure of Postbank, Fintan O’ Toole suggests that the Irish Government has a “strange definition of ‘systemic importance’”.  Contrasting the apathy with which the impending closure of Postbank (jointly owned by An Post and BNP Paribas) has been met, with the €30 billion of taxpayers’ money pumped into embalming Anglo’s corpse, he writes:

Let’s consider this proposition. Postbank has deposits of €450 million and 170,000 customers. It has 70,000 savings and 35,000 current accounts, 90,000 insurance policy holders and 10,000 credit-card customers. It does what banks used to do – provide financial services for ordinary people in their own communities. (more…)