Michael Dowling: Banks are misleading customers with costly cashback mortgage incentives

The Irish borrower will pay an additional huge amount of €68,000 in interest payments over the lifetime of a loan. 

The three banks offering the cashback incentives have one thing in common: They also have the dearest interest rates in the Irish market, for both variable and fixed rates.

Irish mortgage interest rates have gone back to being the dearest in the eurozone and we need to focus on immediate changes that can be made to reduce borrowing costs for both new and existing mortgage customers

In January, the average mortgage interest rate in Europe was 1.29%, which compares with 3.35% in Ireland.