Section 05
Issues for Borrowers
Anyone considering a mortgage with Bank of Ireland should examine the bank’s recent history and current behaviour with care. The tracker-mortgage scandal resulted in fines of over €100 million from the Central Bank. This was a record penalty reflecting serious and systemic failings in governance, customer treatment and account management that affected thousands of borrowers at Bank of Ireland and in some cases continue to cause devastating harm. For those whose tracker mortgage loans transferred from KBC in 2023, there may be serious questions about whether the transfer balance was correct. For all borrowers, given the documented continued failings of Bank of Ireland, the question remains - could it happen again?
When Bank of Ireland acquired KBC’s mortgage portfolio in 2023, it admitted that incorrect mortgage start dates had been entered on its systems for approximately 35,000 accounts, forcing it to suspend reporting them to the Central Credit Register while the error was corrected. This followed a separate 2022 Data Protection Commission finding concerning serious failures in Bank of Ireland’s CCR reporting, which resulted in a €463,000 fine and affected approximately 47,000 customers. Together, these incidents can raise legitimate questions in customers’ minds about the reliability of the bank’s systems, its handling of transferred mortgage data and the accuracy of information reported to the CCR.
These failings are significant. Yet fines imposed on Bank of Ireland are borne by shareholders and, indirectly, customers - not by individual executives. Despite the scale of the penalty, no senior individual has been found personally culpable. For prospective borrowers, that raises legitimate questions about accountability and whether the cultural and structural failings identified will ever be fully addressed.
There are also widely reported, long-running IT disruptions affecting service reliability to consider.
With new lenders due to increase competition in the Irish mortgage market, borrowers will have greater choice beyond Bank of Ireland and its small number of competitors. In the meantime, due diligence is essential. Reviewing regulatory findings, media coverage and independent forums such as Askaboutmoney can help assess whether Bank of Ireland failings are still a potential issue, particularly if your home could be at risk from overcharging.
For those considering Bank of Ireland, a mortgage is a decades-long commitment and trust, operational resilience and accountable leadership deserve as much weight as the rate charged.
For New Borrowers.
What next?
Bank of Ireland has spent years telling the public that it has learned from the tracker scandal. Its annual reports describe a bank focused on fairness, transparency and strong governance while its staff and brand try to recover from reputational damage.
For the Board, faced with the ongoing scandal of overcharging, the loss of homes and harm to small businesses, false mortgage redemption figures and widely reported cultural problems, it begs serious questions about their impact and professional reputation.
It also a should raise concerns for shareholders and institutional investors.
Bank of Ireland’s largest institutional investors include MFS, BlackRock and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and holds approximately 4.8% of the Banks shares. As a major institutional shareholder, Norges Bank has published expectations concerning responsible business conduct and effective board oversight - giving it a legitimate interest in how Bank of Ireland addresses serious and continuing customer harm.
For shareholders, it may suggest a Board unable or unwilling to see beyond a strategy that continues to risk reputational harm to the Bank and the potential loss of shareholder value.
For existing or potential customers evaluating the bank's public statements, they do not judge them in isolation. They measure them against how cases are being handled. They look at how Bank of Ireland responds to disputes. They ask why the bank is defensive of its continued and persistent failings.
For Bank of Ireland sponsorship partners such as Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht Rugby, bank actions should create a more accurate picture of the bank's culture. And for some supporters, those actions still fall alarmingly short of the standards the bank claims to uphold.
For elected representatives and journalists, the tracker scandal reveals how badly things can go wrong when a bank persistently fails to protect customers. Continued cases at Bank of Ireland of overcharging, property being lost, long-term damage to small businesses, leadership denying serious customer concerns and potential poor due diligence on transferring loans reflect media reports of cultural problems and persistent IT issues.
For the Central Bank and Governor Gabriel Makhlouf, Bank of Ireland’s needs to move beyond surface-level compliance towards genuine cultural change. For Bank of Ireland CEO Myles O’ Grady and his Board, restoring its reputation requires not only fairly compensating those it continues to damage, but stopping that harm and starting to demonstrate real openness, accountability, and a renewed focus on customer interests.
Finally, for everyone in Ireland who hoped this behaviour was a thing of the past, the question remains: can Bank of Ireland and its Board ever truly restore public trust, or will the documented harm it continues to cause due to the tracker mortgage scandal define its reputation for years to come ?
Contact
You Deserve to Be Heard
If you have relevant information or experience relating to Bank of Ireland tracker mortgage issues, you can contact us at: contact@bankofirelandmortgagefailings.org
Sources
This website is based on publicly available sources, including the Central Bank of Ireland's Tracker Mortgage Examination (launched in 2015) and its 2022 enforcement action against Bank of Ireland under the Administrative Sanctions Procedure. It also draws on published decisions of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO), including tracker mortgage determinations issued in the years following the Examination. Additional material includes that drawn from publicly listed High Court proceedings and reporting by established Irish media organisations, including RTÉ, in particular the 2025 documentary Trackers: The People v The Banks, The Irish Times, The Business Post and the Irish Independent, together with personal testimony, publicly available statements and annual reports issued by Bank of Ireland and hearings of the Oireachtas Finance Committee. This website is provided for general information and public-interest purposes only. It does not provide financial, legal or mortgage advice. Anyone making decisions about their mortgage or finances should seek advice from an appropriately qualified independent professional.