Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 4 April 2017

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

Banking Sector: Quarterly Engagement with Central Bank of Ireland

10:00 am

Ms Derville Rowland:

There is a concluded case in the public domain. We can only publish our enforcement outcomes at the conclusion of cases. The case to which I refer is in respect of Springboard Mortgages. A fine of €4.5 million, the highest fine the Central Bank has collected to date, was imposed. More importantly, in the course of the enforcement investigation we detected the consumer detriment and prioritised that as the most significant part of our effort. One of our first actions was to require PTSB, the owner of Springboard, to prioritise the identification of impacted customers and give them redress and compensation. The requirement to prioritise the redress and compensation approach was borne out of the open and ongoing enforcement investigation into PTSB. We demanded that consumer interest be a first priority and that the redress requirement which we sought and obtained in law in 2013 be applied. There is a published concluded enforcement outcome and there are open investigations.