Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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240. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to any practice of banks operating in the Irish market of assigning debt or chose in action to vulture funds but of failing to give notice to the debtor of the amounts assigned. [48541/22]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that most loan agreements include a clause that allows the original lender to sell the loan on to another firm. When a loan is sold, the relevant Irish and EU consumer protections continue to apply.

Provision 3.11 of the Central Bank's Consumer Protection Code provides, amongst other things, that where a regulated entity intends to transfer all or part of its regulated activities to another regulated entity it must provide at least two months notice to affected consumers to enable them to make alternative arrangements, and inform the consumer that their details are being transferred to the other regulated entity, if that is the case.

All regulated firms, including banks, retail credit and credit servicing firms, are obliged to comply with the Central Bank's Consumer Protection Code 2012 (the Code) in addition to a range of other provisions of Irish financial services law which are outlined more fully below. Collectively, these provide a strong consumer protection framework, providing rules with which regulated firms operating in Ireland must comply by law.

The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) 2015 amended the scope of the Central Bank Act 1997 and brought ‘credit servicing’ under Central Bank regulation and supervision. This resulted in a significant strengthening of consumer protection for borrowers whereby all consumer protection obligations would travel with loans, if they were sold by a bank to a new non-bank owner. Under the 2015 legislation, the new loan owners themselves did not directly fall to be regulated; rather it was the company appointed to ‘service’ those loans by the loan owner.

The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) 2018 further expanded the scope of the 1997 Act and brought the loan owners (holders of legal title to the credit) directly under Central Bank regulation and supervision, and within the scope of the relevant consumer protection framework.

Therefore, since 2015, credit servicing firms have been subject to the provisions of Irish financial services law that apply to regulated financial service providers, including, but not limited to:

- the Consumer Protection Code

- the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears 2013

- the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 (Section 48) (Lending to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises) Regulations 2015,

- the Fitness and Probity Regime,

- the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 (Section 48(1)) Minimum Competency Regulations 2017, and

- the Minimum Competency Code 2017

The Central Bank’s approach to supervision of the credit-servicing sector is underpinned by an expectation of high standards and a professional and consumer-focused approach to compliance.