This week’s drastic bank restructuring announcement leaves consumers with only two main state-supported Irish banks to choose from – Bank of Ireland and an AIB/EBS hybrid. Although there are two foreign owned banks still in the mix, Ulster Bank and National Irish Bank, only Ulster Bank is focusing on personal banking customers.
People with a Permanent TSB tracker mortgage should suspend voluntary overpayments for a while to await news of a possible sweetener to be introduced by the bank, The Sunday Times’ personal finance editor Niall Brady advises.
The state will have to pump another €20 billion into the banks, government stress tests will reveal this week, according to the main story in The Sunday Business Post. During the election, the coalition partners believed the figure was only half of this amount and €10m had been set aside as a result.
Permanent TSB, Ireland’s biggest mortgage lender, is considering paying hard cash to customers with tracker mortgages in a bid to persuade them to give them up, according to The Sunday Business Post.
Almost 10% of the 6m loans registered with the Irish Credit Bureau (ICB) are now at least a month in arrears – up from fewer than 1% in 2007, according to The Sunday Times.
Concerns are growing that more money will be needed to bail out Ireland’s beleaguered banking sector, particularly AIB, when the results of stress tests are announced formally at the end of the month, The Sunday Business Post reports.
For long periods he has managed to fly below media radar, trained on his former financial colleagues Sean Fitzpatrick and David Drumm. But it appears the guns are now being firmly pointed once again on Michael Fingleton.
European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate hikes could cost Irish homeowners €450m this year and another €1.9 billion on top in 2012, an expert on banking relationships told The Sunday Business Post.
The Sunday Business Post provides a detailed summary of the best savings options available in the market. The piece notes the Fine Gael pledge to increase tax on interest earned on savings (DIRT) from the current 27% to 30% “to encourage higher levels of household expenditure”. However, the increased economic uncertainty still means plenty of incentives to save for those inevitable rainy days ahead.
So, what’s on offer?
AIB is planning to set up a standalone savings business based around the €5.2 billion domestic deposit book it took over from Anglo Irish Bank last week, The Sunday Times reports.
Ireland has the dubious distinction of being the only country of 19 in a report commissioned by Credit Suisse where investors would have been better off leaving money on deposit over the past decade rather than investing in bonds or equities.
In yet another sign of the times, Ulster Bank will wind down its wealth-management division, putting new clients into its financial planning business, according to The Sunday Times.
Va-va-vroom. What do you do if you’re a carmaker but nobody can get the money to buy your vehicles? Simple – you set up your own finance company.