EBS Building Society today announced that it is to increase its standard variable mortgage rate by 0.6 points from 3.23% to 3.83% (3.90% APR) from 1 August.
EBS says increased cost of funds on international markets means that it is still charging less to members than it is paying for funding.
EBS said a previous increase by the society did not close the gap that exists between its variable rate and the rates that it is paying on the open market.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0716/ebs.html
why can't I just shift my mortgage in its entirety to one of those nice, "good" German banks?
The non-Irish banks such as Ulster and NIB did not have the same political masters and so were able to hold rates. Have you seen Ulster or NIB increase rates in the last year on mortgages? Don't think so.
I agree with most of this but not
Ulster Bank Variable rate : >80% LTV = 4.00% APR (non Irish bank)
AIB Variable rate: >80% LTV = 3.03% APR (Irish bank)
The biggest problem here is that the Irish banks cut their margins far too tight in the boom years such that it did not allow them enough margin to be able to build up reserves of capital for the rainy day.
The banks have been foolish, but what they're doing is out of necessity, rather than merely gouging customers.Are you saying that the difficulties that the Irish banks are experiencing at the moment are the result of them being afraid to raise interest rates in 2008 and 2009? That had they done this they would now have sufficient capital reserves to ride out the devastation of the collapse of the property market? I really, really don't think so.
The current interest rate rises are simply (another) result of regulation failure and banking greed / stupidity /short-termism.
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