Financial institutions refund €118m to overcharged customers
Some €118m is being paid back to consumers who were wrongly charged for services by financial institutions, it was revealed today.
In its annual report for last year, the Financial Regulator said that since May 2004 36 firms were being monitored after they were found to have made billing mistakes.
Among them was the controversy at Bank of Ireland and its payment protection scheme which has seen €16m refunded to customers and the AIB foreign exchange scandal which cost consumers €34.2m.
Both reimbursement programmes are now largely complete with delays put down to difficulties in tracking customers.
Mary O’Dea, the watchdog’s consumer director, said it was critically important to resolve issues such as overcharging to improve public confidence.
“During the year we spent considerable time and resources dealing with reimbursement programmes for consumers arising out of charging issues in the past,” she said.
“Resolving these issues is of critical importance in helping consumers to have full confidence in their financial services providers.”
The National Irish Bank reimbursement programme, over the improper charging of interest and fees to over 50,000 customers between 1988 and 1998, is due to finish later this year.
Refunds are estimated at 11.6m euro and 8.3m euro has been paid out to date.
The report also noted the efforts taken by the Regulator to help crack down on money laundering. Some 33 cases were reported to gardai, Revenue Commissioners and the Director of Corporate Enforcement in a bid to prevent and detect dirty money rings.
During 2005 a total of 584 prudential, consumer focused and credit union inspections and reviews were carried out.
As part of its role to monitor the safety and soundness of financial services firms, the Reguator analysed over 57,000 returns and authorised 2,178 financial services providers and 582 funds.
Brian Patterson, chairman of the Regulator, said: “Our duty as a single regulator reflects the need for a consistent approach across all sectors of the financial services industry where appropriate, something which until now has been missing.
“We spent much of 2005 preparing the groundwork for new unified requirements in the areas of competency for those dealing with consumers, the consumer protection code and revising fitness and probity procedures.
“The development and implementation of these requirements will go a long way to bringing this about.”
By the end of 2005, the Regulator was responsible for the supervision of 9,638 firms and funds and almost 1 million copies of its consumer publications were distributed and 23,000 consumer contacts were handled.
There were 191,844 visits to consumer website www.itsyourmoney.ie, 16,637 calls to the help-line (lo call 1890 777 777) and 4,846 visitors to the Information Centre in Dublin.
