AIB tracker offer ‘some time away’

It will be several months before AIB comes up with a package to offer tracker mortgage holders, AIB chief executive David Duffy said yesterday.

Mr Duffy, asked by reporters in Limerick if AIB would be making the same kind of offer set out by Bank of Ireland, said they were looking at a range of options.

“We are not rushing into (it), because we start out with the principle that a tracker is a contractual entitlement and we will not vary or try to adjust, or try to manage that in any way.

“We will be extremely explicit on that.

“So any offer we have is designed to facilitate flexibility and volume in the market place and it can, only when designed, be implemented such that it does not disadvantage the customer in any way.

“We could rush something out for market reasons, so people feel better.

“But we would expect that within the next few months we would have designed and tested and agreed with the regulator what proposals we want to put in place.”

Mr Duffy said AIB wants to come forward with a proposal which is straightforward, simple and easy for the customer to use.

He said: “A restructured customer and a normal customer, somebody who may be in negative equity but just wants to trade down, we will look at all of those, but we haven’t yet decided what actual implementation we will do, but it is within the next few months.”

Mr Duffy said he was not surprised at yesterday’s announcement by theCentral Bank that only a quarter of home occupier in mortgage arrears of three months or more have had their mortgages restructured.