PTSB 'to abolish fixed-rate mortgages' - report
Permanent TSB is expected to cut up to 350 jobs from its workforce later today, and to move towards the abolition of fixed-rate mortgages, according to media reports.
It is understood management and staff will be briefed on the company's plans this morning, and that the job cuts will be voluntary.
In a statement issued last night, the CEO of Permanent TSB Dave Guinane confirmed the bank would seek voluntary redundancies from up to 20% of its workforce, as part of a plan "to secure the future of Permanent TSB" and return the lender to profitability.
The company, which is the country’s largest mortgage provider, employs more than 1,800 people in Ireland, in 100 branches around the country. It is understood some affected staff could be offered redeployment.
PTSB is owned by Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P).
Meanwhile, PTSB mortgage customers face a double hit from the lender, with the bank intending to impose a 1% interest rate increase, and reportedly also planning to abolish new fixed rate mortgages for at least a period of time.
The lender's most recent results showed while IL&P reduced its operating losses for the first half of last year to 10m, Permanent TSB’s once bulging books lost €131m as the property market collapsed.
Larry Broderick, general secretary of the finance union IBOA, said close to 7,000 jobs already lost in the sector since the onset of the crisis in the autumn of 2008.
“Although the vast majority of staff in Permanent TSB are members of the UNITE trade union, we share the sense of shock and disappointment they are experiencing,” he said.
“It is an all too familiar feeling for staff throughout the Irish banking sector. It intensifies the sense of anxiety and foreboding among all staff working in the financial services sector.
“It is now almost two and a half years since the Government intervened with the blanket guarantee for the six Irish institutions. But we appear to be still no nearer to a common vision of the role of banking in Ireland’s economy and society in the future.”
Opposition parties Fine Gael and Labour claimed any job losses at Permanent TSB were a result of a botched banking police and an unsustainable economy and property bubble built by the government.
Elsewhere almost 100 jobs were lost with the closure of medical devices manufacturing plant, Pall Ireland, in Tipperary, while another 50 could go at Cappoquin Poultry Ltd in Waterford.
