66,000 customers affected by eight years of overcharging

AIB HAS admitted it will have to refund nearly €35 million to tens of thousands of customers after the full extent of overcharging by the bank emerged yesterday.

For the past three months, investigators from the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority IFSRA and the former Comptroller & Auditor General Lauri McDonnell have been trawling through AIB’s dealings with customers going back eight years.

They concluded the total amount owed to foreign exchange customers since 1996 now stands at €25.6 million.

The inquiry has also found that in 24 categories of charges, the bank levied customers more than they should have. This ranged from not applying student discounts to incorrectly charging mortgage customers for loan protection.

Repayments to these customers will cost the bank €8m.

IFSRA chief executive Liam O’Reilly said he was confident the tally was the final figure and that the investigators had trawled through some 625 charges and fees imposed by AIB.

Mr O’Reilly said: “In some instances, it charged customers more than it was entitled to. It also failed to notify the regulator, as required by law, in relation to certain regulated charges which it levied on its customers.”

The report also revealed the number of customers affected by AIB’s series of blunders. It found that:

4,200 variable rate mortgage product customers are owed a total of €3.6 million.

34,000 student and account holders are owed €1.4m.

24,000 people had fees for overdraft limits incorrectly applied costing €600,000.

950 consumer lease agreements were terminated early, costing €230,000.

2,436 customers were not given personal savings loan discounts worth €196,000.

Overall, excluding the foreign exchange blunder, the bank’s overcharging affected some 66,000 customers.