EU obligations on Irish government to promote competition in banking

[Brendan Burgess]

As a condition of the state aid to Bank of Ireland, the EU insisted on certain conditions to promote competition in the banking sector.

These are contained in Annex II of the decision.

Annex II is attached to this post.

Based on this, the Irish Competition Commission has declined to investigate competition in Irish banking in a letter to Michael McGrath.

It's so frustrating. Because the banks will implement a current account switching code, everything is fine. They have no grasp at all of the importance of mortgage rates. Some people are overpaying by around €6,000 a year due to high mortgage rates, whereas a current account probably has charges of around €80 a year.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

The bits which could apply to mortgages are

a 2) Provision of information

a. The NCA will redevelop the banking cost comparisons on its “itsyourmoney.ie” website to provide more and better information on available banking products. A mortgage rate comparison will be added. The site will be more interactive and will allow users to link to switching tips and to providers’ websites for follow up.

[FONT=&quot]b. A user testing exercise will be carried out after six months of the implementation in order to assess the effectiveness of the NCA project and introduce any changes required.[/FONT]

d. The National Consumer Agency will run a “shop and
[FONT=&quot]switch” public awareness campaign in relation to banking products and services[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]a[/FONT][FONT=&quot].3) Improved transparency to facilitate consumer decision making

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]a. Better information on fees and interest rates:-[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]iii. Banks when informing customers on changes in interest rates and charges shall include details of the old rate / charge, the new rate / charge and the difference in monetary terms (in the case of rate changes for loans and mortgages)[/FONT][FONT=&quot]4[/FONT][FONT=&quot]8[/FONT][FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

 

[Gerry Canning]

Any Irish Government since the Recession have engineered Bank V Consumer to ensure Mr Bank wins, whilst at the same time pretending they all work for the people.

The National Consumer Agency (NCA) may well be a good home to check things but unless real teeth are given to NCA or appropriate agencies ,it will look good and give pretence of consumer care.
{Improved transparency}
Historically the information wad gets bigger and bigger and without a Finance degree , Joe Soap just signs.
Unless the test of reasonableness ie would you sell that product to your Mother is applied ,we end up in un transparent territory.eg how many people ever fully read terms/conditions?

Obligations are not must does.