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

Mr. Bernard Sheridan:

The Deputy has made a good point. This essentially is the core of where we are at in the examination. It is up to the lenders to deliver on this now in terms of their approach to, and interpretation of, it. They have to take the interpretation from the point of view of what a consumer would reasonably understand rather than from a legal contractual perspective. We are in the middle of this process with lenders and it is true that none of them is taking that approach regarding their consumer focus, but we still have to continue to challenge other lenders. The test will be the outcomes of this examination in terms of what they deliver, but that is a key element of this examination. The Deputy has captured the key element of its scope.