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tracker mortgage scandal
RTÉ wheels out actor behind 'I don't know what a tracker mortgage is' to promote new series
He has returned to our TV screens almost 20 years later to tell us what exactly a tracker mortgage is.
DO YOU KNOW what a tracker mortgage is?
This man, who famously didn’t, has returned to our TV screens almost 20 years later to tell us what exactly a tracker mortgage is, and the subsequent scandal that emerged.
It was an iconic part of an ad in 2007 by the now defunct Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority that saw one man rise to his feet on a bus and announce to his fellow passengers, “I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is”.
Others joined in with, “I don’t know how to save money on me car insurance” and “I don’t understand APR”.
RTÉ has wheeled out the man behind the iconic TV moment to promote its new two-part documentary series on the tracker mortgage scandal.
In the new ad, actor Aidan Jordan says, “Now I do know what a tracker mortgage is. Back at the height of the Celtic Tiger, the big Irish banks couldn’t give away mortgages quickly enough.”
Promotional material says the scandal is “billed as the biggest consumer banking scandal in the history of the State, leaving some of its victims facing financial ruin, ongoing health problems – and in some cases on the verge of a nervous breakdown”.
Tracker mortgages were popular in Ireland in the early 2000s and 2010s. This was because on these home loans, interest is charged at the same rate as another publicly available rate (typically the European Central Bank’s main refinancing operations rate), which basically means customers get the best possible rate.
However, if the ECB rate increases by a few percentage points, your rate will ‘track’ along with it and your payments will also go up to match the change.
In late 2016, it emerged that thousands of Irish mortgage customers who were entitled to a tracker interest rate on their mortgage were denied a right to one or denied the option of one.
More than 15 lenders, which include AIB, Bank of Ireland, PTSB, Ulster Bank, were found to have charged some customers the more expensive rates.
RTÉ’s new two-part documentary, Trackers: The People V The Banks, begins tonight on RTÉ One.
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