Charges of the Heavy Brigade!!

The news was dominated this week by misdeeds in the financial services sector. First we had the disclosure that Bank of Ireland had lost 4 laptops containing the personal, financial and health information of up to 10,000 customers. Bad and all as that was, the abject failure of BOI to inform the Data Protection Commissioner, the Financial Regulator and most importantly those affected immediately reflects very badly on the bank. CAI has called for BOI to pay compensation to all those affected, see our press release.

Then we had another damning report from the Financial Ombudsman in relation to the misselling of financial products to elderly people and the attempts by financial institutions to wriggle out of their commitments to people who had serious illness insurance cover. This is awful stuff, here we have vulnerable people, some in their 80's and 90's and then others whose lives have been turned upside down by serious illness and they are out through the wringer when they are least able to deal with it. Kathleen Barrington has an excellent piece on this in Sunday Business Post today.

There was also turbulence in the mortgage market, with some mortgage providers reducing their commissions to brokers, which could potentially lead some to direct business to where the best commission is rather than where the best deal is for the borrower, see more on that here.

Across the water in the UK the big story was the judgement in the High Court in favour of the Office of Fair Trading, and against all the high street banks.


ITN News report on the case.

The judgement gives the power to the OFT to examine the fairness of charges imposed on customers in relation to unarranged overdrafts, such as people going into overdraft. Thursday's decision was a great one for consumers, however its likely that the banks will appeal all the way to the House of Lords, so it is not over yet. In some cases consumers are charged £35 each time this happens, when independent analysis suggests that it costs the bank about £2. From 2005, thousands of customers have begun to reclaim charges. The charges here are not as high as in the UK, which is primarily in my view because of section 149 of the Consumer Credit Act which I wrote about here previously. And the current charges chaos in the UK is a timely reminder why we need to retain section 149.

However the judgment also points to the need here to review the existing charges imposed to determine their fairness on Irish consumers. In particular there are many people in the sub-prime market who are being charged exorbitant fees and charges which only serve to make it even more difficult for them to sort out their finances. CAI will be writing to the Department of Finance seeking such an independent review of charges.

Tonight is my last night playing Roger in "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell" with Dunshaughlin Players. Its been hard work over the last few months learning the lines and moves, but performing has been great fun so far, especially with such a great cast, director and backstage team. Looking forward to the finale tonight and a few beers afterwards perhaps!!