The battle of the private security vaults has begun. Before this week there were no independent vault providers in Ireland. Now there's two. Word got out on Wednesday that Sentinel Vaults would this week open in an old AIB vault on Dublin's Waterloo Road. Before it could, however, Merrion Private Vaults, which said months ago it intended to open a similar service, announced it had got there first.

Sentinel's boss is Billy Finn, a former senior AIB executive. So, people are too scared to leave their stuff with the banks. They leave it with a private vaults company instead. And who's waiting there to take care of it? A banker. Typical.