Some 50,000 Bank of Ireland customers are to get a small windfall after the bank discovered that it had wrongly imposed Government levies on their accounts.
About €1.8 million is being refunded, with the average payment per customer amounting to €40, the bank said in a statement yesterday.
The mistake was uncovered during internal compliance monitoring, which established that the accounts had been incorrectly designated as Irish-resident accounts. As a result, Government duty charges were applied.
"Following this discovery each of these customer accounts has now been coded correctly and the bank is in the process of writing to each customer explaining the situation and issuing a refund to include the amount overcharged and an adjustment for inflation," the statement continued.
"Bank of Ireland regrets any inconvenience caused to customers and has put in place procedures to ensure that this does not happen again."
A spokeswoman said that most affected customers had been contacted. However, if any customers had questions on the matter, they were advised to contact the bank on +353 (0) 21-4944207.
Last year, the Financial Regulator found that consumers had been reimbursed €118 million since 2004 by 36 financial service-providers found to have overcharged them.
Bank of Ireland, which overcharged personal loan customers on payment protection insurance, estimated that it owed €18 million of this €118 million, including interest.