Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 December 2012
127. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance the number of personal and or commercial loan accounts in Permanent TSB, in which he is the shareholder of 99.5% of the shares, were found to have been charged interest rates in excess of those permitted by contractual arrangements between bank and customer and the amount of money and or credit that was refunded to such accounts in 2009, 2010 and 2011. [55096/12]
View answerI have been advised that Permanent TSB has approximately 1.8 million customer accounts. Given this volume of accounts it is inevitable that from time to time errors will arise and Permanent TSB is committed to minimising such errors, and where they do occur, ensuring that the errors are rectified as soon as possible. Permanent TSB has informed me that in the years 2009-2011 inclusive there have been incorrect interest rates charged on a total of 838 accounts. This represents less than 0.05% of the number of accounts in operation during that time. The total amount of refunds given was €4.3 million, the majority of which occurred in 2010. During this time period PTSB had interest receivable of €3.8 billion so the total amount refunded is just 0.1% of interest receivable in the period.
The data relates to mortgage loans where the customer paid an interest rate in excess of the agreed rate. These errors have been notified through the Banks Customer Impact process or through a project forum from 2009 to date. Customers impacted by these errors have received remediation in compliance with the Consumer Protection Code and the Central Bank was advised as required under that Code.
