Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

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

Banking Sector in Ireland (Resumed): Allied Irish Banks

4:00 pm

Mr. Bernard Byrne:

It includes anyone who had a tracker and therefore had a rate in some contract at some point and then reverted, maybe moving to a fixed rate. Then, because it was not correctly identified or the contract was unclear, or for marketing materials, or whatever the reason was for which we determined that those customers were entitled to go back to a tracker, they received that original margin.

For customers who did not have a tracker, and who were affected by the prevailing rate clause that the Deputy referred to, or similar clauses, since many contracts exist, we believe that the prevailing rate for any commodity-based product or product that has a market price is the rate at which it is offered at that point. It is not offered at a historic rate or rate that has the weight of some historical averaging period in the same way as any commodity, whether fuel or an interest rate, is the rate at which it is offered today. Our view of the prevailing rate is that it is the rate that prevails at the time at which the product is offered and that is how we consider it.