Ulster Bank before the Finance Committee today at 4 pm

I have sent this email to a few of the TDs

Deputies

I think that most of the questions I would have on the Ulster Bank issue would relate to the government funding ptsb to take over the mortgages.

But three questions which you might ask Ulster Bank.

Mortgage Holders are concerned that their mortgage will be sold. While the legal protections remain the same, for non-tracker mortgage holders, Ulster Bank has the legal right to charge whatever interest rate they like. So if the loans are sold to a fund, they can charge whatever they like. If it's a fixed rate mortgage, they have to honour the fixed rate until the end of the fixed rate term, but after that the borrower is vulnerable.

1) If a borrower is on a fixed rate now and wants to switch to an active lender , will you waive any early repayment fee for breaking out of the fixed rate?

2) It's likely that the tracker mortgages will be sold at a discount. It would be more customer friendly to offer the tracker customers the discount instead of giving it to the acquirer. Someone on a tracker mortgage now could easily switch to another lender if you made it worth their while.

3) Switching lender costs about €1,500. For those customers who do not want to have their mortgage sold to the purchaser you choose, will you pay their costs of switching to a lender of their choice.
 
Ulster Bank team on now.

Deputy Tobin: You treated the staff outrageously

Deputy Richmond:
Did the CEO of Nat West meet the CB;
What about the pensions;
What are you doing for those who want to switch mortgages?

Deputy Nash

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan: Why did you decide to leave?
You got a 9.4% return on equity in the UK
You got only 2.3% return on equity in Ireland.
Is the high level of capital requirements a factor? And the high level of Risk Weighted Assets?
But why do banks in Ireland find it hard to make money?

Senator Davitt:
Senator Higgins:
What about the non-performing loan book? Will you be selling them to vulture funds? Some of the non-performing loans are only non-performing due to the pandemic.
If a borrower does not want their mortgage transferred, will they be able to?

Deputy Doherty:
Can you confirm that you are not in discussions with any so-called vulture funds?
Composition of mortgage book - Total@ €21 b, €14 bi mortgages of which 6.5 b trackers.

The tracker mortgage book.

Is AIB just looking at the cream?

The MOU with AIB - a terrible decision for communities, customers and staff - but a great decision for the shareholders of Nat West.
what happens the 600 staff in the North who service the Republic.

If we had the same capital requirements as the rest of Europe, would you be staying?

Deputy Barry:
Are you withdrawing because it's not profitable or because it's not sufficiently profitable?
You transferred €3.5 billion in surplus capital back to Nat West over the last 4 years. How can you justify this?

Deputy Durkan:

Deputy Farrell: I don't like repeating what my colleagues have said [ knowing full well that this is exactly what she is going to do.]

Will those who want to switch have to pay switching costs?
What is the position of those with Approval in Principle?

John McGuinness
What was Goldman Sachs' role?
Is the decision reversible?
The next steps that you take will decide the future of many SMEs in Ireland.
What is the understanding you have with AIB and permanent tsb?

What do you intend to do with difficult loans? What do you intend to do with those in difficulty? Many of our clients are being chased for repossession by solicitors' letters.

What is happening with legal proceedings? Will they be stopped now?

And what about the legal cases against the banks?

When you sold loans in the past to vulture funds, did you get hard cash, or do you get an ongoing share of the profit.


Brendan
 
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Ulster Bank team on now.

Switching: There is no need for anyone to take any action. We do have some of the lowest rates. Customers who can overpay on their mortgage, can do so.

Customers who switch could be worse off.

All the protections will travel with the customers.

This is a phased withdrawal. How do we make switching as easy as possible. In the UK and the Netherlands, it's much easier. We are looking at this to see could it be made easier in this country.

Anyone who has applied for a mortgage, it's business as usual.

My objective is to move customers to a new bank as seamlessly as possible.

We want to maintain jobs, and where we can't, to look after those staff who do lose their jobs.
 
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We can't generate an adequate return on our capital.

Negative interest rates poses a huge income challenge for us.

We are competing with new entrants - with good assets.

The RWA levels are much higher than the UK and most of Europe
 
The format of front loading with all TDs questions just doesn’t work, so many questions go unanswered. Also as usual, TD questions are wrapped up in a statement, taking up valuable time.

Didn’t learn much from the appearance I felt...?
 
Good summary Brendan. A couple of other points I caught, all from Jane Howard:

When speaking about mortgages our preference is to work with banks who offer a full banking service here in Ireland

In-process mortgages will proceed as normal

Said that the statements re no redundancies in 2021 and no branch closures in 2021 were issued to reassure staff and customers generally, and also to ensure that mortgage customers didn't feel the need to act in panic which could disadvantage them

Recent transfer of capital from UB to NatWest related to the return of surplus capital injected by NatWest during bailout and was not the result of profit on normal banking activities.
 
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DublinD said:
The format of front loading with all TDs questions just doesn’t work, so many questions go unanswered. Also as usual, TD questions are wrapped up in a statement, taking up valuable time.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more. An awful lot of time wasting political rhetoric and pointless questions (e.g. "Can you assure us that there will be no compulsory redundancies"). The politicians had twice as much time to ask the questions as the UB team had to reply. The format meant that the UB team could get away with giving bland bulk answers and avoid the tough points. And the format totally prevented any kind of forensic followup questioning (e.g. they were asked what time period would be taken into account in determining a mortgage to be non performing, and would they give an assurance that this wouldn't just be 2020 to ensure that people wouldn't be disadvantaged where their difficulties were solely a result of changed circumstances due to the the pandemic) and totally ignored this and other inconvenient questions. Chair was pretty weak also.
 
The only way to do it would be for the Committee to appoint two of their members to act as lead questioners.

Pearse Doherty is very good but he gets the same time as some Senator no one has ever heard of who wants to pose with a Kilkenny jersey in the background.

Brendan
 
It's a politics grandstanding show - on a par with the US Congress questioning of the Robinhood / Gamestop intervenants last week

I am not sure that the format brings anything to the table in terms of getting some hard facts and answers
 
In all honesty, what was the point in holding this session ?

Do these committees actually have any power, I'm struggling to see it, tbh?
 
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