The noticeable reluctance of Irish bank lenders to mirror the significant increases in ECB rates – which have now jumped by two percentage points since July – points to an increasingly intense battle for mortgage market share among the three remaining banks in the Republic, not least as the funding arrangements of non-bank lenders makes them less competitive. Indeed, PTSB, the only mortgage lender active in the Irish market yet to do so. Tracker mortgage holders aside, of course.
About 15,000 of the mortgage-holders in long-term arrears have not paid a penny off their loans in over two years. Not one cent. These are not pandemic-related problems. Most of these loans are in default for more than five years and each owes, on average, more than €240,000.This scale of defaulting on credit and the acknowledged reluctance of Irish courts to allow foreclosures, giving banks access to the security against which they lent in the first place, means the ECB insists on Irish banks having greater reserves on their books.
As a State, we have a simple choice. We either accept we will pay a premium when we borrow to cover those who cannot or will not pay back their loans; we make it easier for banks to foreclose on loans that fall unsustainably deep into arrears, or the State itself accepts it will have to act as underwriter for loans where the alternative is repossession.
Because our Government and Banking institutions historically screw over the Irish public in unison.
Subscriber only Thats a big 'ol BLOCK for the Irish Times.