Burton calls for authorities to take a harder line with financial institutions

Today’s report by the Irish Independent that over 4,000 Bank of Ireland customers have been paying too much interest on their tracker mortgages further highlights the need for the authorities to take a harder line with financial institutions.

“Banks have cheated thousands of customers out of their tracker mortgages, while I welcome the fact that over 2,000 Bank of Ireland customers have had their tracker mortgages restored to correct levels, it is unacceptable that such a large number of customers have had to deal with the failures of BOI.

“They may be paying some level of compensation to those people who were wrongly deprived of the tracker mortgage, but they need to go much further. There may be some instances where the wronged borrowers have moved on and where they are satisfied with their new arrangement, but any customer who has asked to be put back on a tracker mortgage, must be facilitated. I believe it is incumbent on the Financial Service Ombudsman to make sure that this happens.

“In addition the FSO must clarify if there are outstanding cases where banks have failed to comply with his direction to restore tracker mortgages to borrowers. It’s the least that we should expect of them.”