THE CHIEF executive of State-owned Anglo Irish Bank has told staff he expects to hear back from the Department of Finance this week on a voluntary redundancy programme before announcing the details to staff by the end of this month.

In an e-mail circular to Anglo employees, Mike Aynsley said he expected the bank’s board to discuss final proposals for the redundancy programme next week.

The bank is expected to seek several hundred voluntary redundancies at the end of the month.

Anglo is selling almost 40 per cent of its €72 billion loan book to the Government’s National Asset Management Agency (Nama), which is expected to be passed into law next month.

Mr Aynsley told staff a review of costs had identified savings in areas where there was “surplus capacity” due to fundamental changes in the business.

He said this would be the focus of the redundancy plan.

Mr Aynsley said a second area where cost savings had been identified was through centralising activities and automation, “where efficiency comes at the cost of investment in new technology and new processes”.

This would be addressed in the bank’s restructuring plan, a draft of which was submitted to the department on October 5th.

The plan must be submitted to the European Commission under the terms of the Government’s €4 billion recapitalisation of the bank.

Under commission rules on State aid, the bank must show that it has a viable future or else outline plans to wind down.

Mr Aynsley said the bank would continue to work on the “forward-looking aspects” of the plan over the next week and would make an initial submission to the department shortly.

The bank would then engage with the department “to refine the plan and, importantly, align component activities with the broader Irish financial-sector targets”.

Anglo is expected to focus new lending on small businesses.

Mr Aynsley said he was “very disappointed” to see “the unrelenting negative focus on Anglo by the media”, but he did not expect this to change significantly until the bank began “to make real progress on setting the platform in place for the new Anglo bank”.

“I would ask you to continue to be patient while we work through this difficult period,” he added.

Mr Aynsley told staff he expected to make a “further tangible announcement” on the bank’s new leadership team early next month.

A number of senior jobs, including chief financial officer, head of lending and head of treasury, will be filled at the bank.