Sir, – Despite the ECB holding interest rates at 1.5 per cent, my mortgage provider EBS – like the others no doubt – has raised its variable rate for what seems like the fourth or fifth time this year, so that it currently lies close to 5 per cent. At a time when Irish mortgage holders are struggling, and personal debt issues are very topical news, this is nothing more than unscrupulous profit-taking on the double by already failed financial institutions.
We the taxpayers and mortgage-payers have already endured levies, tax hikes and pay cuts to service this failure, so we shouldn’t be subject to this additional penalty. I suggest legislation be brought in to cap the variable interest rate financial institutions can charge on mortgages taken out from before the institutions were bailed out.
In my mind this would be a far superior and more equitable intervention than the much-touted debt forgiveness approach. The rate could be capped at a reasonable 5 per cent or at very least something like a maximum of 2 per cent above the ECB rate at any time. As for the banks: let them get creative in generating new profitable lines of business, instead of being allowed to further screw their existing customers. – Yours, etc,