Ulster Bank tracker mortgage probe widens

The Central Bank has followed through in its investigation of the banking industry into potential abuses involving tracker mortgages by launching an “enforcement investigation” into Ulster Bank.

The Central Bank last year widened its probe into all Irish banks to find out whether lenders here had potentially deliberately or inadvertently put pressure on customers to switch out of valuable tracker home loans, the cheapest mortgages available, to higher-cost loans.

Following an enforcement investigation, Permanent TSB, last summer launched a redress scheme for 1,372 of its PTSB and Springboard customers involving tracker mortgages. The investigation into PTSB is continuing.