I believe the banks fully knew what they were doing in getting people off their trackers and how they went about it, disgraceful that the central bank appear to be letting them off the hook here.
Mr. Lane admitted yesterday that the Central Bank had to look long and hard at the prevailing rate issue.
If what he says is true, it follows that the position was unclear, otherwise put, there was ambiguity.
My understanding is that the Central Bank's own code is that where ambiguity exists, it should be interpreted in the consumers' favour.
The CB has interpreted this ambiguity in the favour of banks. In other words, this is a complete
non sequitur - which is shameful but not surprising.
It was pretty sickening to observe the self-congratulatory tone of the CB yesterday - the truth is that they were dragged kicking and screaming by the Finance Committee into action. The Regulator simply did not regulate - comments like we've been on top of this since 2008 are ridiculous.
There was one very interesting moment yesterday when Mr. Lane clearly did not even know the upper limit of available sanctions on banks yesterday and had to be rescued by Ms. Rowland. Quite a scary level of incompetence.