PTSB arrears policy according to the Chief Executive

Brendan Burgess

Founder
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53,361
Jeremy Masding the Chief Executive of PTSB attended the Oireachtas Finance Committee today and spoke about arrears, as well as other issues.I was more focused on the SVR issue, so made fewer notes on this topic. I will write a fuller report later when the transcript is published

They have not managed the arrears process well. They intend to double the staff on the area. ( Stephen Donnelly said that they need to quadruple the staff)

Probably because they have improved their arrears management process, the arrears level has improved since the start of the year.

Arrears is caused by unemployment, and not by the high SVR.


They don't believe in debt forgiveness because of the moral hazard.

After the sale of a house, where the mortgage is unsustainable, they continue to pursue the shortfall, for ever. They might agree to a debt write-off on a case by case basis.

They have not written off any arrears despite receiving €4 billion from the taxpayer.

They have 9 practices in place at present.
They are introducing 3 more

  • split mortgages
  • equity participation
  • mortgage to rent
There will be two more arising from the Personal Insolvency Bill
 
Here is his actual speech - I don't think that he says anything new in it

Collections and Arrears


The third priority area has been in respect of Collections and Arrears.

We are very conscious of the huge toll which the current crisis is exacting on customers who

– in most cases through no fault of their own – are struggling or unable to meet their loan repayment commitments. I regard it as a fundamental responsibility of me and my colleagues to treat any customers in that position with respect, with support and with patience and I believe that is the case in our bank.

We are committed to the current MARS process through which we are creating a suite of products to help our customers who have repayment problems and I believe that these can make a very real difference to the challenges facing those customers.

We are also committed to doing all in our power to help our customers to avoid getting into arrears in the first instance and to helping them to correct that situation where it arises as quickly as possible.

On the evidence that I have seen since joining the bank, I do not believe that sufficient priority has been given to this area since the crisis began.

Thankfully that now seems to have come to an end. Certainly we are finding that as we engage more deeply with this issue our customers are responding positively and many are managing to prevent arrears arising – or minimising the extent of any arrears that are rising and that is again very positive.
 


So they don't believe in debt write off as it creates a moral hazard. That makes it hard to see how anyone proposing a DSA or a PIA to PTSB where they are the majority creditor will ever get their proposals accepted.

Steve Thatcher

[broken link removed]
 
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