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:

Yes and there is a cost. This was one of the lines of inquiry a moment ago. There is a cost to implementing a cash-back strategy that exists.

The question was around equivalence and whether we should equate the two; whether, in effect, cash back and a higher rate is the same as the lower rate. There is clearly a cost to each strategy and one must consider them separately. We have said the AIB brand has come out at this stage with its next positioning and EBS has not, at this point, announced something. Consistent with the last time we implemented this, there is a staggering in terms of individual brand positions.