Banks ‘fleecing’ variable mortgage customers: Hayes

Customers on variable mortgages are being "fleeced" by banks, Fine Gael MEP and former junior minister Brian Hayes has claimed as he called for fixed interest mortgages of 10 years or longer to become the norm.

Mr Hayes, who is now a member of the European Parliament’s ECON committee, said experience showed that variable interest rate mortgages were a huge risk to customers.

“Even though tracker mortgages have proved hugely beneficial to borrowers, they are no longer available to customers and of course, these mortgages continue to cause losses for mortgage providers,” he told the annual Banking and Payments Federation Ireland conference in Dublin.