AIB scandal - Gardaí should probe bank overcharging

Advertising in the national press, as AIB did last weekend, for customers to “bear with us” might give the impression that normal business was being disrupted and customers were being asked to put up with a temporary inconvenience.

The reality, of course, is that the bank needs their indulgence while it attempts to sort out financial bungling of monumental proportions which cost the customers, collectively, anything up to €20 million in grossly overcharged foreign exchange transactions.

The weekend advertisement revealed that customers were charged more than 2% on exchanges, which was considerably more than the 0.5% they had admitted to overcharging two weeks ago, on top of that for which the AIB had regulatory approval.