Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Access to Finance for SMEs: Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank and AIB

4:00 pm

Mr. Bernard Byrne:

The cost of credit is still quite low. Some of that is associated with the legacy of the back book, so there are very low levels of interest rates in respect of those. There is a blend of different types of overdraft available but the average rate comes in at 5.45%. If one eliminates and marks for the cost of funds difference in the Irish market versus, say, the German market, they actually normalise.