Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform
Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Ulster Bank
2:45 pm
Mr. Jim Brown:
No doubt tracker mortgages are a drag on the industry as a whole in terms of financial performance. The reality is that the cost of funding to banks, including Ulster Bank, is higher than the base rate that those loans are benchmarked off, but right now we are looking at whether there are solutions that we may be able to offer customers that may be better than trackers. For example, as interest rates are very low right now, is it better to offer a customer a five or ten-year fixed-rate loan? We have not come to any conclusion on that. We are looking at various options, but we will look at it on a case-by-case basis. It has to be something the customer would want to enter into, and there has to be a benefit to the customer as well.
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