Ulster Bank has moved to distance itself from other financial institutions that have been criticised for failing to pass on recent European Central Bank (ECB) rate cuts to mortgage customers.

Mr Gerry Simms, head of retail banking at Ulster Bank, said a key part of the bank's strategy was to guarantee to pass on the benefit from ECB rate reductions to its customers "quickly and fully".

In the past seven months, Ulster Bank has reduced its mortgage variable rate by 1.03 percentage points, against a total ECB reduction of 1 percentage point over the same period.

Ulster Bank's standard variable rate is now 5.1 per cent.

Most Irish banks and building societies have not passed on in full the recent ECB rate cuts to their variable rate borrowing customers and have been slow to implement announced reductions.