Banking culture fails customers, Mylan’s HIV self-test kit, and Aeroflot’s budget airline set for Dublin

A Central Bank report into the culture of Irish banks in the wake of tracker-mortgage scandal says customers suffer as Irish bankers remain caught in crisis-era 'firefighting' mindset. It also found the banks underestimate the work required to transform their culture.

The report says that a lack of diversity was a contributing factor to the financial crisis and the banks are still not doing enough to address this problem.

In a strongly worded column on the report Cliff Taylor asks why, after the crisis and the latest tracker mortgage scandal, the banks still don't know how to behave properly towards their customers. He writes that "the verdict is sobering, if not surprising" and dismisses the proposed Banking Cultures Board as "little more than an exercise in being seen to 'do something'."

Global generic drugmaker Mylan will this week launch a HIV self-test kit in the Irish market in the first intervention of its kind to aid early detection of the immunodeficiency virus. The company's Autotest VIH product, manufactured in France, will be available in Irish pharmacies this week for around €35. In France, for example, it sells around 7,000 units of the product per month.

Central Bank seeks Drumm trial transcripts for probity inquiry

---

Regulator presses banks on lack of ambition on diversity

---

PTSB appoints Citibank’s Ruth Wandhöfer as director

---

Banker accountability rules sought in tracker scandal report

---

Russian airline Aeroflot's budget airline, Pobeda, is to start flying a new direct service from Moscow to Dublin. The service, initially four times a week, may start in spring next year.

Nama earned €690 million from selling assets belonging to developers that was not originally held as security for their debts, a new report shows. In some cases, developers contributed money raised from selling jewellery and luxury goods towards repaying the State assets agency.

Developer Hammerson is likely to wait until next year to seek approval for revised plans for a high-profile site that includes the location of an Easter 1916 battlefield.

Africa-focused exploration company T5 Oil & Gas, founded five years ago by a group of Tullow Oil veterans, is advancing plans to raise $45 million (€38.4 million) through an initial public offering (IPO) next month.

Staying with energy-related news, a new scheme designed to diversify the State's production of renewable energy and boost its chances of meeting key EU targets has been approved by the Government.