THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency (Nama) will consider buying loans from foreign-owned banks falling outside the “bad bank” plan if Irish bank customers have also drawn development loans from non-guaranteed banks.

The legislation establishing Nama, which is expected to be published this summer, will focus primarily on the six Irish guaranteed banks and building societies.

However, it is expected that the legislation will be drafted to allow foreign-owned banks which are not part of the State guarantee to sell development loans to Nama if customers of the Irish banks have loans spread across other lenders.

It’s understood that Nama will likely assess the purchase of development loans from the non-guaranteed banks operating in Ireland on a case-by-case basis as it deals with the biggest developers first.

Nama officials have met senior executives from Ulster Bank, part of the UK-owned Royal Bank of Scotland Group, and Belgian-owned KBC Bank, to discuss how the agency will deal with developer customers common to both guaranteed and non-Irish banks.

Danish-owned National Irish Bank is expected to meet Nama officials in the coming weeks.

A large number of syndicated property deals conducted over the past five years involve both Irish banks falling under the Nama plan and overseas lenders in Ireland.

Ulster Bank was a significant lender to the development sector in recent years and it provided loans as part of large syndicated deals involving guaranteed institutions.

Halifax-Bank of Scotland (Ireland), part of Lloyds Banking Group, has also provided syndicated development loans.

The foreign-owned banks operating in Ireland have sought to engage with Nama on the agency’s plans to deal with multi-banked customers and to ensure that one institution does not act unilaterally against common customers.

The Dutch-owned ACCBank has moved aggressively against a number of developers recently, including Dublin businessman Paddy Kelly, to recover property loans.