FAQs

The Central Credit Register will be a national database of all Irish loans of €500 or more. It will include details on all types of loans such as commercial loans, mortgages, personal loans, overdrafts, credit cards etc.

The Central Credit Register will hold personal and credit information about you and your loans and a payment history in relation to those loans. Lenders will send information on your loans to the Central Credit Register where it will be consolidated to create your credit report.

The Central Credit Register will, in due course and on request, provide:

• a borrower with an individual credit report detailing their credit agreements;

• a lender with comprehensive information to help with credit assessments; and

• the Central Bank with better insights into national trends in the provision of credit.

The Credit Reporting Act requires that NAMA (including National Asset Loan Management Designated Activity Company) submit personal and credit information to the Central Credit Register in relation to all forms of personal and business loans for €500 or more. This requirement also applies to over 500 other lenders in Ireland, including banks, credit unions and asset finance houses.

By 30 September 2018, NAMA must commence providing information backdated to 31 March 2018, including personal information in the case of individuals who are borrowers (and in due course guarantors) in their personal capacity and credit information to the Central Credit Register and will continue to provide monthly updates thereafter. This will be for all existing loans to individuals, partnerships and corporates held or advanced by NAMA.

NAMA will also be obliged to check the CCR when considering loan applications for €2,000 or more.

If you are a borrower and/or guarantor in your personal capacity, another purpose of this Notice is to inform you that the Credit Reporting Act requires NAMA to process personal data for the Central Credit Register.

All personal data that NAMA provides will be used by the Central Credit Register to ensure that loans and borrowers are correctly matched.

NAMA has a legal basis to process this data for this purpose under the Credit Reporting Act and will be commencing this processing on or before 30 September 2018.

Your personal and credit (or loan information) will be sent by NAMA to the Central Credit Register through the Central Bank of Ireland’s secure reporting channels. That information will then be stored securely by the Central Bank of Ireland on the Central Credit Register, where it will be used to create your credit report. The Central Bank of Ireland will then be the data controller in relation to any personal data held on the Central Credit Register.

The current list of personal information (being personal data) and credit information is set out in the Credit Reporting Act and regulations issued by the Central Bank of Ireland in Statutory Instrument No. 486 of 2016 which are available on its website (see below).

The Central Credit Register needs this information to ensure it creates a complete and accurate record of your loans, including credit facilities you may have with other qualifying lenders.

A credit report will contain factual personal and credit information only. The Central Credit Register will not calculate a score or grade for your credit report nor decide if a loan is approved or not. Lenders, such as NAMA, will continue to make that decision.

Information will be kept on the Central Credit Register for five years after a loan account has been closed.

Lenders, including NAMA, may only access your credit report when:

• considering an application for a new loan (and will be obliged to do so from 30th September 2018 onwards in considering any loan application for €2,000 or more);

• you ask to change the terms of a loan facility; or

• NAMA is reviewing a loan in arrears.

No other person, such as employers or landlords, can access your credit report without your written consent.

The Credit Reporting Act requires that NAMA must obtain certain personal and credit information from any loan applicant, in relation to any loan application for €500 or more and to provide that information to the Central Credit Register.

NAMA is also under a legal obligation to hold or obtain from you up to date identification documentation for any borrower or loan applicant, where that is not already held.

If you are a borrower and/or guarantor in your personal capacity then, from 31 March 2018 on, NAMA will be required to obtain your personal public service number (PPSN) from you in relation, for example, to any loan application and to provide that to the Central Credit Register.

In addition, NAMA is required to take all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the personal and credit information submitted to the Central Credit Register and may require your assistance in verifying that information to ensure accuracy.

When making any credit application, you will also be required to advise NAMA if you have an outstanding aggregate debt of more than €5,000 for any loans which are not governed by Irish law where you were resident outside the Republic of Ireland when those loans were entered into.

Accordingly, over the coming months, you will increasingly see these requirements forming part of NAMA’s credit application process. NAMA may also write to you separately if there is any particular information required by the Central Bank or further identification documentation is required from you in relation to your existing loans.

You should note that compliance with these requirements may impact on NAMA’s timelines to advance facilities on foot of loan applications.

When credit reports become available, you will have a right to:

• request your credit report at any time (your first credit report each year is free);
• insert a 200 word explanatory statement on your credit report;
• apply to have your credit or personal information changed if you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. Any such application must be made in writing, with supporting documentation. If a requested amendment is not made by the CCR, you can enter an explanatory comment for inclusion on your credit report.

The Central Bank has published details of how to submit a request for a credit report on www.centralcreditregister.ie.

Please note that there are restrictions on the manner in which NAMA (or any lender) is in a position to report to the Central Credit Register. For example:

(i) where a loan is limited in recourse to a specific property or other asset, it is not possible for NAMA to report this and the full amount of that loan will still appear on your credit report (notwithstanding that NAMA may have no further recourse to you in that respect);

(ii) if you have entered into a settlement agreement with NAMA in relation to joint borrowings, but all parties to those loans have not done so, it is not possible for NAMA to report such a settlement at an individual level, so there will be no reference to your settlement agreement being in place and related loans must be reported on in full;

(iii) if you have entered into a settlement agreement with NAMA but certain terms or conditions must still be met, it is not possible for NAMA to report this, so there will be no reference to your settlement agreement being in place and related loans must be reported on in full;

(iv) if you are either the subject of, or discharged from, a bankruptcy or similar personal insolvency arrangement, but either your bankruptcy estate has not been fully administered or NAMA continues to hold security assets (which fall outside of that bankruptcy or personal insolvency arrangement), it is not possible for NAMA to report this and related loans must be reported on in full;

(v) if you are party to a limited liability partnership, which has been dissolved arising from the bankruptcy or other insolvency related event of one of your partners and NAMA has not been made aware of that dissolution, NAMA will report on those loans as partnership loans;

(vi) if a receiver (or similar insolvency office holder) has been appointed over your assets secured in favour of NAMA and that receiver has borrowed monies, as your agent, which is secured on those assets, NAMA will report on those loans in your name and not in the name of the receiver.

If any of these or similar issues apply to you, we suggest that you obtain a copy of your credit report and exercise your right (under s.13 of the Credit Reporting Act) to include an explanatory note on your credit report to clarify any such circumstances.

You can only do this directly with the Central Credit Register (see contact details below). NAMA will not be able to note this on your report or provide any further assistance in this regard.

You will also have the right to report and be informed of suspected impersonation if you reasonably believe you have been, or are being, or may be about to be impersonated by any person. In such cases, you can request the CCR to note this on your credit report for the purposes of alerting other credit providers of that impersonation. NAMA will also be obliged to notify you if it believes that you are being impersonated.

You do not need to take any action in relation to this Notice.

It is simply to inform you that NAMA will commence sending this information to the Central Credit Register by 30 September 2018 at the latest and the information will be backdated to 31 March 2018.

Because compliance with the Central Credit Act is a legal obligation for NAMA, your consent is not required in order that NAMA do so.

More information about the Central Credit Register is available from the Central Bank of Ireland. Please refer to the factsheet and other information available at www.centralcreditregister.ie

If you required further information or have further queries, you can contact the Central Credit Register, as follow:

NAMA’s loan portfolio is significantly deleveraged and the Agency has limited remaining interest in property assets. NAMA was set up to acquire loans from certain financial institutions and it does not own property as such. In most cases, the property securing these loans is under the control of the debtor. A borrower whose loans have been deemed eligible and have been transferred to the NAMA Group. The borrower is referred to as a debtor. A debtor connection is a group of loans that are connected to a debtor and will remain so as long as the debtor continues to meet his obligations.

If, therefore, you have a specific property in mind that you wish to purchase, it is best to approach the debtor (registered property owner) directly. Debtors, as part of their business plan agreements with NAMA, will have agreed to the sale of some or all of their property and these will be offered for sale through normal property sales channels and marketed on the usual property websites. NAMA’s involvement, as secured lender, may not be referenced in the marketing.

In the case of certain debtors, NAMA has had to take enforcement action and the property securing the loans is now under the control of receivers or other insolvency agents appointed by NAMA.

No. NAMA cannot divulge details of property that it may hold as security Includes (a) a Charge, (b) a guarantee, indemnity or Surety, (c) a right of set-off, (d) a debenture, (e) a bill of exchange, (f) a promissory note, (g) collateral, (h) any other means of securing—(i) the payment of a debt, or (ii) the discharge or performance of an obligation or liability, and (i) any other agreement or arrangement having a similar effect.. NAMA can only provide details of properties where an enforcement action has been taken by NAMA on that property. In all other cases, NAMA will neither confirm nor deny that it has security over a property but, in some cases, can pass your interest onto the debtor.

No. NAMA cannot divulge details of property that it may hold as security Includes (a) a Charge, (b) a guarantee, indemnity or Surety, (c) a right of set-off, (d) a debenture, (e) a bill of exchange, (f) a promissory note, (g) collateral, (h) any other means of securing—(i) the payment of a debt, or (ii) the discharge or performance of an obligation or liability, and (i) any other agreement or arrangement having a similar effect.. NAMA can only provide details of properties where an enforcement action has been taken by NAMA on that property. In all other cases, NAMA will neither confirm nor deny that it has security over a property but, in some cases, can pass your interest onto the debtor.

As a state agency, NAMA’s policy is for properties to be sold on an open market, competitive basis in a manner that is in accordance with prevailing market norms for the asset class and the jurisdiction in which the asset is located. The principal methods of sale are (a) private treaty (b) public auction (c) public tender (d) sealed bids and (e) other disposal mechanisms tailored to the specific characteristics of the underlying property. In certain limited circumstances, NAMA may agree an alternative form of property disposal as recommended by the insolvency practitioner.

At all times, NAMA will operate in a manner that is in accordance with the insolvency practitioner’s statutory obligation to achieve the best possible price reasonably obtainable for the property at the time of sale. Where an insolvency practitioner is appointed, he/she will determine the most appropriate method of sale for the property in order to secure the best possible price.

Yes. NAMA has identified 7,653 residential properties as being potentially suitable for social housing. The process of confirming demand and suitability is a matter for local authorities and is not something in which NAMA has a role. To date, 2,997 have been delivered for social housing use. which is the majority (92%) of all those properties for which demand was confirmed and which remained vacant and available.

Once demand for a property was confirmed by a local authority, NAMA facilitate contact and negotiation between its debtor and the local authority or Approved Housing Body ('AHB') to acquire the property. Contractual arrangements can take the form of a lease or purchase. In general, purchases are completed by AHBs and the properties acquired are then made available to local authorities under a payment and availability agreement. To help further streamline delivery, NAMA also established a special purpose vehicle (National Asset Residential Property Services, NARPS) to take ownership of properties where there is an established demand and then lease them long-term to an AHB or Local Authority. The establishment of NARPS and forward lease of social housing properties to AHBs has been a very successful initiative under NAMA's social housing programme, with over half of the total units delivered being by way of NARPS leasing arrangements. NAMA has dealt with various counterparties and local authorities in the provision of social housing, and has been directly involved in over 180 individual social housing projects nationally.

A schedule of social housing units delivered by NAMA to date is available under Social Housing

The Minister for Finance’s Section 227 Review of NAMA confirmed that NAMA will conclude at end-2025. Staff employed by the NTMA and assigned to NAMA are on fixed purpose contracts which means that their contracts will be terminated when the Agency’s work is concluded.

NAMA has acquired the loans of some 850 debtors to date. The Agency will directly manage the debts of the largest 180 of these debtors. The rest will be managed by the participating institutions under delegated authority from NAMA.

NAMA’s objective is to obtain the best return for taxpayers. It must make a judgement in each case whether its objective is best achieved through working with the debtor. A borrower whose loans have been deemed eligible and have been transferred to the Group. The borrower is referred to by the Group as a debtor. A debtor connection is a group of loans that are connected to a debtor. or enforcing against him. The decision to support a debtor or enforce against him is heavily influenced by the outcome of the business plan process which begins as soon as a debtor’s loans are acquired. Agreement with a debtor on a viable business plan allows NAMA to work with the debtor consensually to ensure repayment, to the greatest extent feasible, of the loans due. Where it makes commercial sense to advance further money to a debtor in order to complete a project which can then be sold to pay down debt, NAMA will do so.

However, where a debtor cannot meet his obligations or is unwilling to reach a reasonable accommodation with NAMA, the Agency will initiate enforcement action to take control of the assets underlying the loan.

For more information on the debtor business plan process, please see the Debtor Business Plans page of this website.

For more information of NAMA governance and accountability, please see the Governance section of this website.

Under Section 10 of the NAMA Act, NAMA is required to obtain the best achievable financial return for the State having regard to the cost of acquiring and dealing with loans and any other costs incurred in preserving or enhancing the value of property securing them. Over time, NAMA aims to recover loan acquisition and ancillary costs from receipts of loan interest and principal from debtors and from loan repayments generated by sales of property assets by debtors or by receivers appointed by NAMA.

The transfer of loan balances in the order of €74 billion from certain financial institutions to NAMA is an exceptionally large transaction. For all parties to the transaction – the State as the purchaser of loans, the institutions as sellers and the EU Commission as overseer of State aid rules – it was vital that the transaction be valued rigorously and comprehensively. This necessitated the involvement of professional advisors in their capacity as valuers, lawyers and financial experts to carry out the due diligenceA comprehensive appraisal of a business especially to establish the value of its assets and liabilities. There are two types of due diligence carried out by the Group, Legal and Property due diligence on the loans and on the underlying property and other assets.

NAMA secured these services on a very cost-effective basis due to a competitive and thorough public procurement process used by the Agency. The cost of the services – €30m in 2010 – has been recouped from the banks through a deduction in the price paid by NAMA for the loans. The benefits of rigorous due diligence have exceeded the costs by a significant multiple – the identification of deficiencies in loan security Includes (a) a Charge, (b) a guarantee, indemnity or Surety, (c) a right of set-off, (d) a debenture, (e) a bill of exchange, (f) a promissory note, (g) collateral, (h) any other means of securing—(i) the payment of a debt, or (ii) the discharge or performance of an obligation or liability, and (i) any other agreement or arrangement having a similar effect. has meant that NAMA has saved closed to €300m on what it would otherwise have paid for the loans concerned.

In order to ensure consistency of treatment for all loans, regardless of when they were acquired by NAMA, it was considered that a single reference valuation date should be used for the purpose of valuing underlying property assets. This date was fixed at 30th November 2009. Each property was, in the first place, valued by an expert valuer employed by the participating institution. A Credit Institution that has been designated by the Minister under Section 67 of the Act 2009 as a Participating Institution, including any of its subsidiaries that have not been excluded under that section but also owing a legal duty of care to NAMA. NAMA reviewed each valuation and, where it considered a valuation to be excessive, it referred it to an independent third-party valuer. This third-party valuation is accepted by NAMA and used as part of the loan valuation.

In simple terms the discount is the difference between the nominal value of a loan (the outstanding loan balance) and the price NAMA paid for it. To date, the portfolio of loans has been acquired by NAMA at an average discount of 57% – nominal loan balances to the order of €74 billion have been acquired for a consideration of €31.8 billion, a discount of over €42 billion or 57%.

The valuation methodology for the transfer price of loans was determined by the EU Commission and requires NAMA to take a view on the long-term economic value. The value as determined by NAMA in accordance with the NAMA Act that an asset can reasonably be expected to attain in a stable financial system when the crisis conditions prevailing at the time of the passing of the Act are ameliorated. of the property assets securing the loans. Taking into account also the impact of prospective enforcement costs and discounting, the price paid for each loan tends to be closely aligned to the current market value. The estimated amount for which a property would exchange between a willing buyer and seller in an arm’s-length transaction of the property securing it. For instance, a loan for €10m may originally have been advanced by a bank for a property which was then valued at €11m). A borrower whose loans have been deemed eligible and have been transferred to the Group. The borrower is referred to by the Group as a debtor. A debtor connection is a group of loans that are connected to a debtor equity of €1m). The property is currently considered to be worth €6m. The effect of applying the valuation methodology is that NAMA pays close to €6m for the loan. Where there are defects in security Includes (a) a Charge, (b) a guarantee, indemnity or Surety, (c) a right of set-off, (d) a debenture, (e) a bill of exchange, (f) a promissory note, (g) collateral, (h) any other means of securing—(i) the payment of a debt, or (ii) the discharge or performance of an obligation or liability, and (i) any other agreement or arrangement having a similar effect. and documentation which could reduce further the sales proceeds of the property, appropriate discounts are applied to reflect the likely impact of these defects.

NAMA was established to take property-related loans off the balance sheets of the participating institutions and to give them Government-guaranteed securities which could be used as collateral, a borrower’s pledge of specific property to a lender, to be forfeited in the event of default with the European Central Bank. As a result, the five institutions were provided with over €30 billion in liquidity which they would not otherwise have been able to access.

NAMA has discretion to acquire eligible assets as defined by the NAMA Act. These include loans advanced for land and development purposes and associated property loans. To date, NAMA has acquired property-related loans with nominal balances in the order of €74 billion from the five institutions participating in the NAMA scheme. The loans were advanced to 850 debtors and relate to some 16,000 properties. As payment, NAMA issued securities to a value of €31.8 billion to the institutions concerned (95% of the consideration is in the form of Government Guaranteed Senior Bonds and 5% is in the form of subordinated debt, i.e. Debt which is repayable only after other debts have been repaid).

NAMA is prohibited under the NAMA Act from disclosing confidential information. Confidential information is specifically defined to include information relating to debtors. Furthermore, the Act provides that, on acquisition of a loan, NAMA takes over the obligations of the participating institution. A Credit Institution that has been designated by the Minister under Section 67 of the Act 2009 as a Participating Institution, including any of its subsidiaries that have not been excluded under that section under the loan, one of which is the contractual duty of confidentiality which the debtor. A borrower whose loans have been deemed eligible and have been transferred to the Group. The borrower is referred to by the Group as a debtor. A debtor connection is a group of loans that are connected to a debtor. enjoyed while still a customer of the participating institution. For these reasons, NAMA cannot disclose details about debtors as to do so would leave it open to litigation. Information about individual debtors or guarantors is also protected against disclosure by the Data Protection Acts with which NAMA must comply as a data controller. A change in the law would therefore be required to enable NAMA to disclose information about debtors.

NAMA became subject to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, 2014 on 14th April 2015

The FOI legislation provides that every person has the following rights:

• the right to access records held by FOI bodies listed in the Act;
• the right to have personal information altered or deleted where such information is incomplete, incorrect or misleading; and
• the right to be given reasons for a decision taken by FOI bodies that affects them.

Further information on FOI in NAMA is available on the FOI section page of this website.

The FOI Act 2014 gives you the right to access records held by FOI bodies including NAMA. The release of records is subject to a number of exemptions which are set out in the FOI Act 2014.

If an FOI body does not release certain records, it is obliged to set out the reasons for doing so in a decision letter.

Detailed information on how to make an FOI request to NAMA is available under Making a Request for Information.

There is no charge for making an FOI request. However, fees known as search, retrieval and copying fees may apply in certain circumstances. Further details are available under Fees.

Under the FOI Act, a request for records will be acknowledged within two weeks and, in most cases, responded to within four weeks. A week is defined in the Act to mean five consecutive week-days, excluding Saturdays and public holidays (Sundays are also excluded as they are not considered week-days).

In certain circumstances, NAMA may extend the decision period by a further four weeks.

If you are dissatisfied with NAMA’s response to your request, you can seek to have the decision re-examined by a more senior member of staff within NAMA. This is known as an internal review.

Applications for an internal review should be addressed to the FOI Unit, National Asset Management Agency, Treasury Dock, North Wall Quay, Dublin 1, D01 A9T8 – Email: foi@nama.ie / Tel: +353 1 238 5060. There is a fee for a non-personal Internal Review application of €30 (€10 for medical card holders). Further details are available under Fees.

Yes, if you require help, the FOI Unit can help assist you with drafting your request. The FOI Unit is also available to provide assistance to persons with a disability to exercise their rights under the FOI Act.