The Financial Services & Pension Ombudsman yesterday published a digest on 25 decisions relating to mortgage trackers taken in 2019. 

The report indicates that in total, the office of the Ombudsman has received over 1,800 complaints related to tracker mortgages, of which 650 were dealt with by end 2019 (the Digest is a sample of 25 of them), with a further 1,152 cases outstanding. 

The Central Bank notes that to date, 40,100 customers of the banks were caught up in its tracker examination. AIB announced on February 4th that it was taking an additional €300m provision for a cohort of 5,900 customers in relation to a decision by the Ombudsman in midlate January, so the issue of trackers and the Ombudsman is topical. 

The Irish Independent reports this morning that Bank of Scotland (Ireland) has acknowledged that it will reinstate a few hundred customers to tracker rates after a recent Ombudsman ruling. The decisions in the Ombudsman’s Digest relate to 2019, so any implications for the banks would had to have been taken in the FY19 results – BOI, Ulster Bank, KBC and PTSB have already reported results with AIB next week – with very little incremental provisions.

According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "We note that 1,152 cases remain outstanding, so there is potential for future negative newsflow on unfavourable outcomes for the banks as the rest of the year unfolds. But it feels this is likely to be on an individual case basis, with the banks noting they don’t have any large similar groups or cohorts of customers at risk unlike the large group that AIB had previously identified in its €300m provision (5,900 customers). We estimate the 5 mains banks have taken provisions in total to date of €1.63bn (redress, costs and fines)."

Source: www.businessworld.ie