Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 December 2021

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

Withdrawal from Irish Banking Market: Engagement with Ulster Bank

Ms Jane Howard:

I thank the Deputy for the question. One of the points we have made in the past, and it is an issue we have worked very hard on, is to ask any constituents or customers listening who are in financial difficulty to please engage with us. I have previously quoted this figure, but we have found that in four out of five cases we have been able to support customers to get them to a performing basis and remain in a home they can afford to be in. We have done that very much on an individual basis and by reviewing customers, because they all have very different circumstances, on a case-by-case basis to see how we can come up with something that works for them and the bank. That has continued. We have continued to support customers throughout all of this year. In the majority of cases, we are still finding that we are able to help customers get on to a performing basis and, therefore, take the worry of having a non-performing loan away from them.

We provided the committee with some details more recently on non-performing loans. Our figures for 30 September give a non-performing loan ratio of just over 4%. We had roughly 5,300 customers whose loans were categorised as non-performing. We saw that number reduce throughout 2021 as we moved customers to performing status. Customers should engage with us because we are keen to help them to get to performing status. In this way, they can be included in any transaction we are making. There will come a time when we will have customers whom we cannot move to performing status and when we will have to deal with the non-performing loan sale. That is not the priority; the priority right now is to continue to support customers.