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. Ale? Bla?ek:

In respect of mortgages and deposits, those notices will be given more than 60 days prior to the migration. As I mentioned, we have not yet been able to set the date because it is dependent on when we receive CCPC approval. We will provide sufficient notice, which will definitely be longer than 60 days, to customers about any change.

In respect of the current account holders, the situation is different because the most preferred way for the customers is to transfer to a bank of their choice. We can do that either through switching or the customers' switching process or the customers can open new bank relationships at their will. The current accounts will not at first be transferred by us. It is down to customers to decide whether they want to move to the Bank of Ireland or some other bank. We will start to communicate on the current accounts with the customers as soon as possible. It will be a set of communication, which will be in the form of what we call soft notice and are telling them now. We have already notified all of the customers about the fact that we have signed the transaction with the Bank of Ireland and notified our intention that if there is an approval, we will leave the market. That has been stated to all of our customers. When we receive the approval we will also communicate to our customers that now we have received approval, in due time we will notify them that we will no longer in the future provide banking services in Ireland. It will be a longer period and there will definitely be more than 60 days for customers to choose which bank they want to use.

I want to mention that we have focused on this in great detail. Most of our customers have other banking relationships. They do not have KBC as their only bank and we support those customers. It will be much easier to close the account or transfer their banking to that bank.