Study: Mixed bundling of financial products replaces tying

TYING of financial products has been banned in Ireland for some time, but it has been replaced by other practices, such as mixed bundling, according to a study carried out for the European Commission.

The document, now open for consultation with the Commission’s Internal Market section, places Ireland in the group of intermediate countries for competitiveness in financial products and warns of potential antitrust concerns.

Ireland is one of the few countries that bans products such as mortgages being available only as part of a package that includes, for instance,insurance.