Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 September 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Banking Sector in Ireland: Bank of Ireland

9:30 am

Mr. Liam McLoughlin:

No. There is no straight comparison versus the EU numbers. The market in Europe is very different from the market in Ireland. We have a similar sized mortgage book in the UK, but it is a very different market. The Irish market is driven principally by an interest rate headline number. In continental Europe and in the UK, where we have a business, arrangement fees are charged up front, which is not a feature of the Irish market. Other costs at play for the Irish market include the cost of credit, given the arrears situation that we have had for the past couple of years, and the costs of capital, which are higher than in other European jurisdictions. These drive different behaviour.

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