The arrangement is also thought to have been changed to appease Irish regulators who were worried about the potential liability for Irish taxpayers. Divesting The Merrill Lynch operation, which is based in Dublin and started in 1995, is among 21 overseas-owned banks to have full Irish banking licences. Bank of America chief executive Brian T Moynihan has spent three years cleaning up after his predecessor's takeover of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch & Co, divesting more than $60bn (€45bn) of assets in the process. MLIB had $591.6bn (€440bn) of assets at the end of 2011. That is almost three times the size of the country's biggest domestic lender Bank of Ireland Plc's €159.8bn balance sheet. The plan may "be driven in part by internal tax considerations," said John Bruton, chairman of the International Financial Services Centre. "Losses in the UK are more easily set off against profits in the UK." (Bloomberg)