IMHO and One Big Switch team up to encourage 25,000 people to switch

Brendan Burgess

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According to Charlie Weston in today's Indo.

Mass mortgage switching will 'terrorise' banks

The plan is to get at least 10,000 people who owe less than their properties are worth to commit to moving their mortgage to a lender with a lower rate.

Switching to the best-value mortgage could see a family with a €250,000 home-loan saving around €1,500 a year. This is because there is a one percentage point gap between the highest and lowest variable rates in the market. One Big Switch would negotiate a deal with one lender for a cut-price deal, and the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation would use its financial experts to carry out the switching.
 
This was suggested, independently, at our public meeting last week.

It will be good for existing borrowers with a maximum of 80% LTV who meet the LTI criteria of the Central Bank.

It might well be good for sparking competition in the market generally.

However, it would be better if a foreign lender could be introduced to really get competition going.

Brendan
 
Muscle away David. If they can get this off the ground it may be good for those of us who can't switch. I just hope they don't drop the rate more to get the new business and leave the ones who are trapped on existing rates isolated even more.
 
If you cant switch your mortgage due to LTV, Neg equity, people should consider switching current accounts, insurance, credit cards etc. I know UB are hardly quaking in their boots at the thought of it, but I'll never put any business through them after my experiences as a customer and ripped off SVR holder.
 
People with low LTV are likely to have relatively smaller mortgages & the legal cost of switching is about 1500 so there would need to be some incentive of the sort that KBC and PTSB are currently offering to cover the costs.
 
Muscle away David. If they can get this off the ground it may be good for those of us who can't switch.

Agree fully.

We have no monopoly on this campaign. If David Hall can help to lower interest rates, fair play to him.

Brendan
 
Is there somewhere to "sign up" to the campaign so the numbers ready to switch can be counted?
 
Switch to who though..

Surely you will end up with PTSB customers moving to BOI and BOI moving to PTSB therefore not really effecting the banks much.

Perhaps I am missing something but it would make sense if the proposal described involved moving all customers to a single Bank and therefore effecting the banks left behind. Seems to me that all this switching will still leave the banks with a fair share of mortgage customers.
 
Any initiative that shakes up customer inertia and encourages competition in the banking market has got to be welcomed - ultimately competition is what will drive down mortgage rates.

Having said that, I'm don't really see what Mr Hall brings to the party here - as sahd says, just switch yourself.
 
He was on Primetime just there discussing this...the way he talked about it on Sean O'Rourke earlier, you'd swear he's single handedly bringing this issue out from the shadows!!!
 
The LTV will exclude us : A 2006 mortgage -9 years paying and three or four years of over to odds variable interest rates keeps us negative. If we had the extra 2% that the bank fleeced us for during the last 4 years then we might make the LTV requirement. We are on 4.15% and we would be delighted to switch and never go back to that bank but where can we go to get a lower SVR mortgage? It looks like our only hope is Michael Noonan or else try and sell the house,pay the bank and start again.
 
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