Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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195. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to instances in which banks may be advising incorrectly to customers (details supplied) such as small business owners and farmers on whether their loans come under the Central Bank's tracker mortgage examination. [41913/20]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Central Bank has advised that the Tracker Mortgage Examination required all lenders to review all mortgage accounts in respect of both private dwelling houses and buy to let properties (but it did not include non-home commercial mortgages) up to the end of 2015,

- that originated on tracker interest rates;

- that had tracker interest rates applied at any stage during the term of the underlying mortgage agreements; and/or

- where the underlying mortgage agreements provided for contractual rights to or options for tracker interest rates at any stage during the term of the agreements.

All tracker mortgage accounts that fall within this scope are covered by the Examination. The Examination involved the initial review of more than two million mortgage accounts by lenders to identify the number of in-scope accounts.

The Examination required lenders to conduct a complete review of their mortgage loan books to assess compliance with both contractual and regulatory requirements relating to tracker mortgages. These regulatory requirements include all relevant statutory codes including the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears (CCMA) which provides that protections of the CCMA, including those protections relating to the removal of a tracker rate, apply to a mortgage loan of a borrower which is secured by his/her primary residence. The scope of the Examination was designed to ensure that such consumer protections were correctly applied to consumers on their family property or personal investments type mortgages.