IRISH NATIONWIDE has appointed John McGloughlin, a former executive with Citibank and Arthur Andersen, as the building society’s new chief financial officer.

Mr McGloughlin, who has recently been working as a financial consultant, started yesterday, ahead of the retirement of chief executive Michael Fingleton on Thursday.

Long-serving Irish Nationwide executive Stan Purcell is staying on as finance director and secretary. Danny Kitchen, a director of the building society, will take over as acting chief executive.

The appointment of a chief financial officer follows a direction from the Financial Regulator earlier this year that the society bolster its management team.

The society is searching for a new chief executive to replace Mr Fingleton and is thought to be close to choosing a candidate.

In a circular to members last week, the building society signalled its intention to increase the size of the board from eight to 10 directors at the annual meeting on May 12th.

It outlined the breakdown of commercial property loans, which account for 80 per cent of the society’s €10.4 billion loan book.

Irish Nationwide said that, of the €8.2 billion total commercial property loan book, 54 per cent was in the UK, 33 per cent in Ireland and the remainder was in Europe.

Almost 98 per cent of its €2.3 billion residential property loans were in Ireland.