Just a few days ago, I got the final notice from ACC Bank that my current account, which I have had for 40 years, would be closed.

In their note, ACC strongly recommend that I and farmers like me make arrangements to open a current account in another bank as soon as possible. A key question has to be why did ACC Bank, with Rabo Bank as a parent, steeped in agriculture and agri-business, not stick with their speciality and provide serious competition for the remaining pillar banks – AIB and Bank of Ireland?

When I put the question to a senior ACC executive, I was told “we just could not get critical mass” and, at just 4% of the agri market, that is certainly true. A more valid question may well be why did ACC – uniquely in the Irish market – go after what has turned out to be the illusory property bonanza in the mid 2000s?

Rabo did it nowhere else in the world but it seemed to succumb to the same feelings as everyone else – that there was easy money out there instead of the hard graft of farming and knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your individual customers. The easy money proved illusory and the Dutch parent, Rabo, has lost hundreds of millions in the Irish property adventure.

But with prospects for Irish agriculture brighter, especially in Rabo’s speciality area of dairying, you would imagine that now would not be the time to give up.

AIB and Bank of Ireland will admit quite openly that, over time, agriculture has been the best-performing sector in which they are involved and both are stepping up their efforts to win extra farming customers.

Both banks have to rebuild balance sheets and return to profitability. It was remarkable the other day to hear Richie Boucher, the head of Bank of Ireland, declare that two banks were not enough in Ireland. Ulster Bank still insists that it is in the farming business, but its parent, the Royal Bank of Scotland, continues to labour under enormous problems and Ulster has lost even more than Rabo in the Irish property adventure.

Most countries have a strong agriculture-based bank. FBD has done a good job on the insurance side, but has shown no appetite for banking – a farmers’ bank was one of the original concepts when the company was started in the late 1960s. One wonders if it should re-examine the prospect from its position of relative strength.