Banks likely to resist home loan rates cut

No doubt, it is only coincidental that no sooner had Fianna Fáil resurrected a bill that would give powers to the Central Bank to impose ceilings on mortgage interest levels that AIB announced it would be reducing its mortgage variable rate from July.

It’s amazing, sort of, how the banks can immediately raise interest rates but it takes AIB two months to reduce a rate by a quarter point.

Home loan rates are lower in many other parts of Europe and have been for some time, as the banks here either did not pass on any reduction when the key rates were cut by the ECB or only delivered token rate reductions.