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AIB IS TO INCREASE its variable mortgage interest rates by 0.5 per cent from next month – a move that is likely to hit about 70,000 customers.
The increase, which kicks in on November 13, will add €56.50 to the monthly repayments on a 25-year mortgage worth €250,000.
The move comes only a week after Bank of Ireland announced a similar increase which will take effect in three weeks’ time.
Bank chief executive David Duffy said while the bank was “acutely aware” of the impact its decision would have, it was necessary if AIB was to return to profit.
“AIB does not have an option of continuing to provide mortgages on a loss-making basis at pricing materially below our market competitors, as is currently the case,” he said.
The repayment comes only two days after the bank – which has received €20.7 billion in State aid, and is now 99.8 per cent owned by the taxpayer – repaid a €1 billion unsecured bond which was not covered under the terms of the bank guarantee.
The financial regulator has previously expressed reluctance to accept any powers which would give it the right to force banks to adopt certain interest rates.
The AIB and Bank of Ireland increases come in spite of reductions to the ECB’s main interest rate, which has been halved in the last twelve months from 1.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent – cuts which took immediate impacts on the interest rate applied to tracker mortgages.
Most commercial banks claim, however, that they are not primarily dependant on ECB funding and that the cuts to interest rates do not save them much money.
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Accord marriage counselling. dont make me laugh. they charged us 150 euros three years ago for a mandatory pre marriage course that lasted a day. I needed counselling after paying out that kind of cash.
Stephen, how was it mandatory?
In order to get married in the catholic church, you must do this course
That Bertie bloke’s got a lot to answer for.
You shouldn’t have married him.
Marriage is something that you have to work at. Once both of you talk openly with each other a lot of silly issues can be resolved before they get out of control. Try your best to keep mother in laws away from negotiations as that can spell serious trouble.
It would really help also if the gluttens in the Government stopped savaging peoples finances because the cost of living ain’t coming down e.g mortgages,shopping,electricity/gas…
A good half of marriages I know are financially agreeable. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t last long. People call that love here! Ha ha ha!
Never do it, locked to 1 person for the rest of UR life, no thank u
Totally agree Louise, can’t understand why anyone would get married in this day and age.
Tax
I wonder if Accord will offer their services to the gays when equality in marriage happens.
No, and if it’s marital stress caused by something like having had a pregnancy terminated, they’d probably just hang up the phone on you!
Will they have people qualified enough to deal with gays? Would the counsellors not need to be gay themselves so as to offer the best service.
‘The gays’, its like being back in the 90′s. Sean, how very logical of you.
‘The gays’, its like being back in the 90′s.
Money. The root of all evil ,
Perhaps we need that asteroid to veer off course and smash into earth,
The world really does need to hit there reset button , before the greed ends up forcing us to self destruct
Im afraid to tell you the reset button is made up. We’ll just have to make do . . . Awkward!!
Read “the midnight companion ” http://www.dealing-with-separation.com it’s brilliant .
I think that people want to save their relationships way above the need for financial problems. If it was that simple we would see sites like http://markkordubapsychologist.com/couples-counselling-brisbane/ becoming null and void. Relationship and marriage counselling has become such a useful tool for people because we don’t ever really get a set of instructions when we start a relationship :) Interesting article!
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