Brendan Burgess
Founder
- Messages
- 52,116
According to Charlie Weston in today's Indo, increasing competition will bring down mortgage rates.
Merrion Capital reports that AIB and BoI are losing a lot of business to KBC which is competing aggressively on price and that AIB and BoI will have to cut rates to compete. In fact, Merrion says that AIB and BoI are already losing existing customers to KBC.
As I have pointed out here Briefing: Irish mortgage rates are almost 2% higher than the Eurozone average! ( 1 2) there is plenty of scope for Irish lenders to cut their rates and,
the new business will still be very profitable.
The government owns AIB, ptsb and the EBS , which between them control over
50% of the mortgage market. They should instruct them to compete for new business
by cutting rates down towards the rates in other eurozone countries.
Of course, the Central Bank is still pretending that the rate for new business in Ireland
is only 3.15%.
Merrion Capital reports that AIB and BoI are losing a lot of business to KBC which is competing aggressively on price and that AIB and BoI will have to cut rates to compete. In fact, Merrion says that AIB and BoI are already losing existing customers to KBC.
As I have pointed out here Briefing: Irish mortgage rates are almost 2% higher than the Eurozone average! ( 1 2) there is plenty of scope for Irish lenders to cut their rates and,
the new business will still be very profitable.
The government owns AIB, ptsb and the EBS , which between them control over
50% of the mortgage market. They should instruct them to compete for new business
by cutting rates down towards the rates in other eurozone countries.
Of course, the Central Bank is still pretending that the rate for new business in Ireland
is only 3.15%.