Danske Bank revealed on Tuesday that it has identified 78 Irish customers who were impacted by an industry-wide overcharging scandal relating to tracker mortgages going back almost a decade.
The Danish bank, which entered the Irish market in 2005 before exiting the retail banking business in the Republic four years ago, is the last among 15 current and former mortgage lenders in the Irish market to indicate how many of its customers were affected.
The bank said in a statement that 60 borrowers were put on the wrong rate when they were given a loan linked to the European Central Bank benchmark, with the margin error coming to an average of 0.26 per cent. It has found that a further 18 customers were either denied the right to a tracker rate or not given clarity that they were entitled to one.
“The bank has corrected the interest rates on all impacted accounts and expects to be writing to all impacted customers with an offer of redress and compensation by mid-December,” it said, adding that it has set aside €600,000 to deal with the issues.
It said that none of the errors identified had resulted in the loss of ownership of a property and that its review is subject to assurance work by the Central Bank.
“Danske Bank would like to sincerely apologise for the errors and any distress caused to impacted customers,” it said.
The disclosure from Danske Bank means that current and former Irish mortgage lenders have acknowledged up to 27,527 cases of overcharging. The figure is expected to rise as banks complete their reviews and regulators go over their figures.
