Tracker bank bosses refuse to say sorry

*except for Gerry Mallon, the (clearly sensible) boss of Ulster Bank

BOSSES at banks responsible for cheating thousands of customers out of tracker mortgages this weekend refused the chance to apologise to those affected.

As Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe plans to haul bank CEOs before him for a knuckle-rapping next week, four out of five of the main offending bank chiefs declined to apologise after the latest revelations.

In an astonishing dismissal of the growing public anger over the scandal, the bosses of Bank of Ireland, AIB, Permanent TSB and KBC Bank Ireland had nothing to say on the matter last week.

Only the chief executive of Ulster Bank, Gerry Mallon, was prepared to give a statement apologising for what had happened.

The remainder declined to comment directly. Instead, many banks used spokesmen – who are as a rule not publicly identified – to reiterate earlier statements, some of which, the spokesmen said, contained apologies made on previous occasions.

When asked through a spokesman if she had any message for the Irish public ahead of his meeting with Mr Donohoe next week, Francesca McDonagh, the new CEO who took up her post with Bank of Ireland just two weeks ago, provided no response.

She was then asked whether she would apologise for BoI’s actions over trackers: however, once again she chose not to comment.

A spokesman said that BoI was working to address the problem and that it had apologised before.

Bernard Byrne, CEO of AIB, which became the State’s largest mortgage lender during the financial crisis as EBS was folded into the group, did not respond to either of the questions. A spokesperson for the bank referred the Irish Daily Mail to an apology from Mr Byrne on behalf of AIB to customers affected by the tracker examination contained in a 444page annual report.

Wim Verbraeken of KBC – which is alone among the State’s top five lenders in not having given an indication of how many of its customers are impacted by the tracker issue – had ‘no comment’.

PTSB boss Jeremy Masding declined to respond to either question. A spokesman said Mr Masding ‘has apologised on behalf of Permanent TSB for this episode on numerous occasions, including at a press conference (July 2015) when he briefed the media on the issue and at subsequent engagements, including various Oireachtas committees’.

Ulster Bank CEO Gerry Mallon, who took up his post last year, was the only boss to take the opportunity to apologise directly for his bank’s conduct. He said: ‘We are absolutely not dragging our feet. Late hours are being worked and a great deal of effort is being put in. I can imagine the frustration and anguish among customers is dreadful. I reiterate the apologies I have made in relation to this.’

The latest insult to customers from the country’s leading lenders comes after the Taoiseach threatened banks with tax hikes over their failure to pay back and compensate customers over the tracker mortgage scandal.

At least 13,000 borrowers were forced onto higher interest rates after their banks refused them their right to a tracker. A total of 23 homeowners and 79 investors are known to have lost homes due to being wrongly denied trackers.

THIS newspaper has been to the fore in exposing the real human cost of the tracker mortgages scandal on those who were left struggling financially, whose marriages collapsed under the strain, and who in some cases saw their homes repossessed.

We very much welcome the banks being summoned to meet Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe next week.

In advance of it, the Irish Daily Mail yesterday contacted the five big banks to ask what they planned to say at the meeting and to offer them the chance to apologise to their customers.

To his credit, Ulster Bank chief executive Gerry Mallon did so, but the other four banks either referred us to previous statements on the matter, or declined to comment at all.

What we offered was the chance to show they had learned from their misdeeds, to communicate with their customers and the wider public, and to show genuine remorse.

That they declined shows they still are completely out of touch with public opinion and do not have even a basic sense of how to do the right thing.

They have a week to remedy this. When the meet the minister, they should use the occasion to publicly, unreservedly and abjectly apologise, and give an unequivocal commitment that the compensation process will be fair – and swift.