KBC’s rate cuts so ‘annoying’
KBC Bank Group’s CEO Johan Thijs had to apologise this week for describing the Central Bank’s crackdown on the tracker mortgage scandal as ‘annoying’.
The same week KBC announced that it had slashed the bonus interest rate on its regular saver account by a massive 0.75% to 0.25%.
This is the same account that once boasted a 4% interest rate and has been steadily reduced after thousands of unsuspecting savers were lured on board with the soonto-be reneged upon prospect of a decent interest rate.
KBC then slashed that rate, knowing few people switch. For good measure it also cut other deposit rates this week from a derisory 0.1% to a ludicrously low 0.01%.
It’s the oldest trick in the old school banking book of tricks, one that Michael Fingleton used prodigiously in Irish Nationwide’s heyday. But the tactic has no place in a supposedly transparent modern digital bank that KBC professes to be.
That is annoying.
Stopping banks fleecing customers in the disgraceful, and illegal tracker scandal that saw many lose their homes is just our financial regulator doing its job, Mr Thijs.
*****
This week we saw long-awaited childcare supports finally unveiled. The main feature is that families who collectively earn under €60,000 will be entitled to a means-tested, sliding scale of subsidy. So does this mean ordinary working families will finally be able to afford childcare? Nope. Do the maths. The average wage is €39k a year – or €78k for two working parents. They won’t come anywhere near qualifying for this important allowance.
There is also a universal nonmeans tested childcare allowance of 50c an hour. But you get this only if you use an approved creche, which probably carries a greater price premium than the miserly 50c per hour allotted compared to, say, Auntie Brenda.
So the squeeze on the squeezed middle goes on and the old catch 22 still applies: if you earn enough money to buy a home and actually think about having a child, you’ll get little or no state help.