Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 June 2018

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

Matters Relating to the Banking Sector: Allied Irish Banks

9:30 am

Mr. Bernard Byrne:

Again, I do not know the precise date but we would have received communication on that issue, as I am sure others did. Let us move on with it. We were very familiar with the issues associated with that particular cohort. We have even discussed our position and thoughts on this grouping in this room. It was not some completely new set of facts that emerged in respect of this particular issue. We felt the situation in respect of this grouping was reasonably conclusive based on the contractual position and what the individual customers had signed, which, effectively, was a waiver form which acknowledged that in the event of them swapping off tracker rates, they would have no entitlement to trackers. We were in discussions with the Central Bank which felt that we should give more weight to issues around marketing materials and other correspondence and to some ambiguities associated with language. These ambiguities were in other materials, not in the contracts. We gave that a lot of consideration and ultimately determined that we would include that group. It was not, therefore, a new consideration or issue from that point of view. We were aware of the grouping. This is one of the issues which we refer to as finely balanced. Some of these issues are finely balanced in terms of how it is decided to go in any particular direction.

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