Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 1 December 2021
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Withdrawal from Irish Banking Market: Engagement with KBC
Mr. Barry D'Arcy:
The specific element of the regulations that were applied to customers and what occurred with the tracker mortgages in the period following 2008 was specific to each bank. The ECB would set the refinance rate and the banks would then apply a rate toward that. The ECB would not have direct engagement with what an institution would do to its customer. However, we would follow closely and track the rates the ECB set. In that context, the ECB sets the broad framework in which banks can operate, but not necessarily what would be specifically applied to an individual customer.