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:

The tracker product is very attractive, so a number of customers are obviously very interested in the tracker offering. Many of them may feel they have an entitlement, or a perspective they should be open to an entitlement in respect of it. What we have had to do is consider all of these individual circumstances, considering the contractual position, which tends to be one group, and the transparency issue, which is more challenging in terms of thinking whether there was a reason somebody could have had a legitimate expectation they were entitled to a tracker. We have redressed a large number of customers simply because of this transparency issue. We must form decisions in respect of this and we have done so. Some customers feel they are close to one of the situations, but either contractually or because of the materials they have, we do not believe they are. I am not surprised some customers will find hope and desire in pursuing a tracker issue but we have made determinations based on getting the balance right between being fair to customers and respecting the fiduciary responsibility we ultimately have to the State and shareholders in protecting the payments that flow. The Central Bank is the final determinant of the approach we have adopted but it will not conclude in respect of all this until 2018. We also have the appeals processes that exist for individual customers.