Bank bosses warned over treatment of customers when pandemic payment breaks end

Derville Rowland, the director-general at the Central Bank, has issued a strong warning to bank chiefs to ensure they don’t revert to penalising customers when the Covid-19 payment breaks end on mortgages and other loans.

When the economic crisis broke with almost 1.3 million people needing some sort of Government payment to make ends meet, the banks offered customers payment breaks on their loans for an initial three months, which was subsequently extended to six months.