Frank Mortgages appears to be no more...

Bad news on Frank. According to The Sunday Times here (reg to read): "Frank Mortgage has withdrawn an application for authorisation as a mortgage lender by the Central Bank of Ireland. Frank chief executive Colin Cunningham declined to respond to a request for comment."

Good news on Finance Ireland. According to the Sunday Times, Finance Ireland will launch their mortgage product later this year and will target all market segments.

Hi Ciarán

That is terrible news. It makes Michael McGrath's bill to control rates even more urgent.

Any further information on [broken link removed]? I see that they had only €75m in loans out last December which isn't a lot given that they were founded 15 years ago.

Brendan

It is bad news alright. A shame for Colin Cunningham personally and a shame for Irish mortgage holders. We need competition to drive rates down. It took the arrival of Lidl and Aldi to drive down the cost of groceries here on "Treasure Island". We need new entrants to come in and lend at circa 2% thus wiping the eyes of BOI/AIB/UB/etc.

Brendan Burgess said:

Any further information on [broken link removed]?

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From googling Finance Ireland, it seems:
- Finance Ireland shareholders are Pimco and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
- HSBC provide their wholesale funding.
- Run by a former head of Irish Permanent.
- Profitable with aggressive growth targets.

CiaranT said:

According to the Sunday Times, Finance Ireland will launch their mortgage product later this year and will target all market segments.

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That's fantastic news.

Finance Ireland are already authorised by the Central Bank as a retail credit firm so there is nothing to stop them offering home loans from a regulatory perspective.

Billy Kane has a lot of experience of the residential mortgage business from his time with IL&P and Finance Ireland is obviously well backed.

This could well be the new entrant to the mortgage market that we all want to see.