Small amount of 20,000 still open Ulster Bank accounts contain more than €10,000
Around 16,000 Ulster Bank customers have had their accounts closed in recent times. File picture: Brian Lawless/PA
A small number of customers who have yet to close their Ulster Bank accounts have balances of more than €10,000.
While the majority of customers who are yet to close their accounts with the bank, which is soon to depart the Irish market, have balances of less than €10, some far exceed this, representatives told an Oireachtas committee.
Around 20,000 accounts are still active, CEO Jane Howard said. “One says ‘we’re not going to go until you make us’, and the other ones we don’t know why they’ve not gone and we’re most worried about them,” Ms Howard said.
Both Ulster Bank and KBC fielded questions at the Oireachtas Finance Committee over their departure from the Irish market. The move means that anyone who was a customer with these banks would need to switch to still avail of banking services.
While they both announced their intentions to depart in 2021, neither bank has completely wound down yet with tens of thousands of accounts still open. Ms Howard said that 16,000 customers have had their accounts closed in recent times, with cheques on their way to cover the remaining balance on their account.
“The vast majority have very low balances,” she said, while admitting there were some accounts still with large amounts in them. Ulster Bank did not provide a figure for the highest remaining balance, or an overall balance of accounts yet to be closed.
Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty queried about the number of accounts still open with a social welfare payment being paid into it regularly. Ulster Bank said it was reaching out to customers, particularly vulnerable customers, to guide them through the process and ensure they weren’t left without services.
Mr Doherty also asked Ms Howard if any mortgage holder caught up in the tracker mortgage scandal who had received remediation had had their loans sold to a vulture fund. The Ulster Bank CEO said she wasn’t aware of any such case.
Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan put it to Ulster Bank that they still had 20,000 “loyal customers” that they “simply can’t get rid of." He also asked both banks if Ireland had a competitive banking market, given the departure of two of its largest players.
KBC CEO Frank Jansen said, despite KBC leaving, he believed there was competition still present here and that Ireland “remains for those participants an interesting market to come to”.
“It’s hard to say how many banks a country requires,” he added.
