New plans to resolve Mortgage Arrears Crisis

[Brendan Burgess]

Extraordinary plans released today.

Government statement here.

It applies to

The Central Bank is setting the following targets for the six main banks – Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, ACC, KBC and Ulster Bank:

They do not apply to the lenders with the biggest arrears rates

• Start Mortgages
• IBRC - formerly Irish Nationwide
• Bank of Scotland
• Local Authorities

It doesn't apply to Danske Bank either, but they have the best arrears situation, so it's less important.



brendan

 

[Brendan Burgess]

The nonsense of this target regime was highlighted yesterday.

AIB has managed to achieve its target by sending letters to the 4,000 borrowers who have not engaged telling them that they will take legal action.

I don't blame AIB for this. I blame the Central Bank for having such a nonsense regime.

Brendan

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Stephen Bell of Ulster Bank was highly critical of the target regime as I have documented in this post

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=180381

The Central Bank's Target regime is wrong and will encourage us to repossess more often that we would otherwise have
[FONT=&quot]However, just as we were getting traction with the expanded solutions and our increased capability, along came the target regime. I will be candid here - and[/FONT][FONT=&quot]apologies in advance - but my personal view is that targets are not the answer. I have no issues with mortgage lenders being required to publish their progress against pre-determined measures. My concern is that in setting a target where failure to meet it results in swingeing financial penalties, everyone does whatever it takes to hit that target and not what’s right for the customer.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The truth is that many of the arrears cases we see every day could be solved by customers addressing their expenditure choices and prioritising secured over unsecured borrowing. Best practice is to encourage that process to take place. However with a requirement for 50% of all 90+ cases to be on a sustainable arrangement by year end, the potential reaction could be to “go legal” whenever we suspect a reasonable payment won’t be forthcoming at a very early stage in the conversation

[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]I fully agree and have said this elsewhere. Banks will be able to achieve targets by repossessing people, even if that is not the right solution.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]