Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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96. To ask the Minister for Finance if he is satisfied with the operation of legislation to provide protection to persons whose mortgages are sold to third parties; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1724/16]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of firms which are regulated under the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1731/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 96 and 101 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act, 2015 was enacted on 8 July 2015. It was introduced to fill the consumer protection gap where loans were sold by the original lender to an unregulated firm. The 2015 Act introduced a regulatory regime for a new type of entity called a 'credit servicing firm'.  Credit Servicing Firms are now subject to the provisions of Irish financial services law that apply to 'regulated financial service providers'. This ensures that relevant borrowers, whose loans are sold to third parties, maintain the same regulatory protections they had prior to the sale, including under the various statutory codes (such as the Consumer Protection Code, Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears, Code of Conduct for Business Lending to Small and Medium Enterprises and the Minimum Competency Code) issued by the Central Bank of Ireland.

The Central Bank is the competent authority in Ireland for the purposes of the Act. Following the conduct of a public consultation exercise, the Central Bank published for Credit Servicing Firms on 10 December 2015 which firms have to meet both in order to obtain an authorisation and on an ongoing basis.

As the Deputy will know, the Act also provides for transitional arrangements for existing Credit Servicing Firms who were conducting credit servicing prior to the enactment of the 2015 Act. Section 34F of the Act provides that a person carrying on the business of a Credit Servicing Firm immediately before the commencement of the 2015 Act is taken to be authorised to carry on the business of a Credit Servicing Firm until the Central Bank has granted or refused authorisation to the person, provided that the person applies to the Central Bank under section 30 of the Act for authorisation, in a form specified by the Central Bank, no later than 3 months after that commencement. Persons seeking to avail of these transitional arrangements were therefore required to have completed and submitted an application for authorisation to the Central Bank by 8 October 2015 in order to continue to provide such services.

The list of Credit Servicing Firms that have notified the Central Bank that they wish to avail of the Transitional Provisions under Section 34F of the Central Bank Act, 1997 is available at .  Currently there are sixteen firms on this register.