Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

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

Tracker Mortgages: Allied Irish Banks

4:00 pm

Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

We have been successful in getting the message through that we are open. We stated when we were discussing it that we had been open for a considerable period to writing down debt. We are realistic in that regard. As we said, when customers come to us and want to solve the debt problem, we have options available. We have created a unique structure for putting in place compromise debt arrangements where we split a loan into three parts in order that we can create a warehouse part and if the performance of the other notes works, we can write off that portion of the debt. That process is working well for us. With the come-back in the economy, we are seeing a consistent level of restructuring and an appetite to engage, both at customer and adviser level. I mentioned the numbers. That is what we encourage because if there is engagement, it avoids us having to take the legal route which we have to do at a point in time to be fair to everybody. One should also remember that at this stage we have restructured for more than 25,000 customers. To be fair to them, they came forward and engaged with us. They engaged in an compromise and got on with the business. To be fair to them, we must also make sure we take the appropriate action at the other end.

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