Tracker mortgages scandal - We never learn
It must be a relief, even if a belated, inadequate one, for the thousands of individuals or families deliberately ensnared by the banks in the tracker mortgage scandal that lenders have paid €647m in refunds or compensation to customers caught up in the swizz, which goes back more than a decade.
The air of sleaziness around the affair continues to deepen as the number of cases lenders have admitted to rose by 1,400, to 39,800, between August and December. Initially, the banks suggest that those overcharged might number in the low, single-digit thousands. There may be even more.
That those exploited by the banks are being compensated is very welcome, but the entire process, the entire scandal, raises many questions.
Who actually pays the €647m? Surely, in one way or another, that burden eventually falls on customers or shareholders — in many cases pension schemes — of the banks, rather than those who perpetuated the fleecing?
This is another failure of accountability and will do nothing to prevent the next dodgy scheme dreamt up by ambitions, greedy bankers. Foolish us, we never learn.
