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
3:35 pm
Mr. Jim Brown:
The approach we have taken is that we have treated any customer who is in arrears as a high priority. It does not matter whether they are one day past due or two years past due; everybody is a high priority. We have increased the number of people to contact the customers experiencing arrears in that we now have 400 people making calls. That is the first point.
The second point is that we have come up with a wide range of solutions. We have talked about some of the more innovative ones. We have a wide range of solutions available to customers, but the initial approach we are taking to customers in terms of the calls we make is to get them back into the habit of paying something towards their arrears. The second approach is highlighting to customers that in many cases the arrangements they can come to with us to resolve their financial situation is in many cases cheaper than the cost it would be for them to rent. It is contacting customers, sharing with them the implications of not paying, getting them into the habit of paying something and then working through a sustainable solution. That is the order in which we have approached it.
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