Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Overview of Banking Sector: Permanent TSB

3:25 pm

Mr. Ger Mitchell:

There is engagement with the Central Bank on an ongoing basis on a wide number of issues. For sure, we have had discussions with it on our pricing. It is important to identify the distinction. There are two portfolios of variable rate mortgages. There is the standard variable rate, the historical legacy variable rate, which effectively was a blended rate from 0% finance up to 100% and beyond. In recent years it has moved to a managed variable rate and a loan to value variable rate. We led the market in that regard in May 2013. We introduced a variable mortgage rate at 3.95%. We have tried to break the link with the standard variable rate and try to reward customers who bring a greater and more sizeable deposit to the transaction.