Central Bank markets supervision director to join Standard Life

The Central Bank of Ireland's outgoing director of markets supervision Gareth Murphy is set to join Edinburgh-based pensions giant Standard Life in a senior role.

Mr Murphy will join Standard Life as chief risk officer (CRO) of the company's asset management arm and deputy group CRO in January, a spokesman for the Scottish firm confirmed in response to questions from The Irish Times. He will take over from William Littleboy, who currently holds both positions and has decided to take a period of extended leave before returning to a new role, he said.

Securities

Mr Murphy informed the Central Bank in August that he was resigning his position, where he has been in charge of supervising Ireland's massive funds industry and securities firms for the past six years. Almost €1.94 trillion of international investment funds were domiciled in Ireland at the end of July, according to the Irish Funds Industry Association.

Central Bank governor Philip Lane has since decided to split the markets division into two units as it deals with a surge of inquiries from London-based investment funds and firms following the Brexit referendum. The bank is setting up two new divisions, an asset-management directorate and a securities and markets directorate.

Special project

Under Mr Murphy, the Central Bank started a special project last year to understand an area of unregulated entities in Dublin’s International Financial Services Centre, known as special-purpose vehicles, which are designed to pay little or no tax. The exercise is part of a global effort to hunt for risks in the shadow banking sector, a growing area of financial activity that takes place outside of the traditional banking industry.

A report published by the bank on Tuesday showed that Ireland is home to 822 SPVs, which held €324 billion of assets at the end of last year. However, it concluded that less than €152 billion of the qualified as shadow banking activities.

This report will feed into the central bank’s engagement with international authorities, including the Financial Stability Board.

Financial near-collapse

Mr Murphy previously worked with the Bank of England, JP Morgan and the now-defunct hedge fund management firm Long Term Capital Management.

A number of senior people hired following the near-collapse of the financial system, including Matthew Elderfield, Stefan Gerlach, Jonathan McMahon, Fiona Muldoon and Peter Oaks, have departed in recent years. Patrick Honohan, the academic who was tapped in 2009 to become governor of the institution, retired last last year and was succeeded by Prof Lane.