Ms Derville Rowland:

We looked at the groups of customers that were included by the lenders to make sure they got the numbers right. More importantly, we looked at the groups of customers who were excluded by the lenders. As the committee members know, through our work and the work of this committee, the lenders were forced to include 20,000 more customers than they originally wished. I absolutely recognise that not everyone who wished to have a better-priced tracker received one. I can fully understand their disappointment. Where the requirements we had to look at provided a basis to go to bat for customers and require the lenders to include them in the redress programme, we absolutely did so.

We designed this programme to work with the other parts of the national framework. The redress and compensation scheme is an extra option for people who have been affected. They can absolutely go to the ombudsman or to court as they wish. If customers have been included in the redress programme, they can always take the payment upfront and try to do better for themselves with the ombudsman. It is important to remember that the ombudsman has a very different statutory mandate from that of the Central Bank, which can be very beneficial to the customers. That process allows customers to bring their personal information to the ombudsman. The lender also has to answer to the ombudsman and new information can thus come to light. When the ombudsman makes a decision, the statutory basis on which he does so is different from ours. That can be of benefit to us if any issues arise from cases.

I was asked about the feedback loop on cases before the ombudsman. It is working well. We are in dialogue with the ombudsman. If he is concerned about cases he will refer them to us and we will examine them. We will require the lender to examine them. New information may emerge, and if that gives us another angle from which to examine this on behalf of customers, we will of course do so. We also expect lenders to look at that new information. Where it is of wider applicability, we expect them to give the benefit of that read-across to the customers. That is part of the current framework. We are in dialogue with the ombudsman about cases. We will look at any issues he refers to us that raise concerns. We also expect the lenders to do that work. They will carry out a read-across, and if we get new angles on a case, we will examine them. We are here to do one thing, namely, to deliver for customers where we have a basis to do so. The system needs to work well and we need to continue to be vigilant in monitoring that.