Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE ULSTER BANK head has said it is “unacceptable” that some of its former customers’ personal details were compromised after the bank sold on the loans.
TheJournal.ie reported last month that a debt collection agency that works on behalf of some banks and credit firms operating in Ireland experienced a data breach which resulted in some customers’ personal details being released.
Cabot Financial Ireland Limited, the credit servicing business, was appointed by Promontoria Scarriff Designated Activity Company as the regulated entity responsible for dealing with its mortgage administration.
Last year, Ulster Bank sold a loan book portfolio, known as Project Scariff, worth €1.6 billion.
It consisted of €900 million of owner-occupier loans across 3,600 accounts and €700 million of buy-to-let (BTL) mortgages across 2,900 accounts.
Phishing scam
In a letter dated March 2019, and seen by TheJournal.ie, a solicitor’s firm on behalf of Cabot told one customer that due to a suspected email phishing scam attack, some “personal information” had been disclosed.
This included names, contact information, and financial details, such as the amount of the outstanding balance this person owed on their mortgage.
The letter states:
Following the identification of this issue, the matter has been referred to the gardaí. We have also reported this matter to the Data Protection Commission.
Appearing for the first time before the Oireachtas Finance Committee, Jane Howard, the Chief Executive of the bank, was asked about whether she was aware of the data breach.
Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty asked Howard if Ulster Bank had contacted Cabot Financial or Promontoria and asked “what are they doing” to their former customers.
The Ulster Bank boss said:
I wasn’t aware of the data breach, that is something we will pick up as that is clearly unacceptable.
Doherty said Ulster Bank’s former customers, which were sold on in the loan book portfolio sale, were put in that position by the bank.
Bank’s responsibility
“You put them in this position because your bank sold them… they are fast and loose, you have a responsibility to treat your customers in an appropriate manner,” he said.
A statement to TheJournal.ie from Cabot at the time confirmed the matter was notified to the gardaí and the Data Protection Commissioner. The Central Bank also confirmed that it was aware of the issue.
Howard was also questioned about letters sent to a number of mortgage holders demanding that they pay the full amount of their arrears within 30 days.
Again, these mortgage holders previously banked with Ulster Bank, but were sold off in the Project Scariff sale.
TheJournal.ie understands that Cabot has written to a number of borrowers who are behind in their payments, demanding that all arrears be cleared within 30 days.
This has been confirmed by the Central Bank of Ireland, which said in a statement:
The Central Bank is aware that a regulated entity has written to a number of buy-to-let borrowers in arrears.
The letter, seen by this website, sent to mortgage-holders indicates that if they fail to pay up the full amount they owe, Cabot will have “no other option but to appoint a Receiver over the secured property”.
On this issue, Cabot declined to comment when contacted by TheJournal.ie.
Calling in arrears
Doherty said Ulster Bank, like any other financial institution, is within its rights to do this, but said they do not as they have a reputation to uphold and customers to attract. Vulture funds, on the other hand, are only interested in the short-term gain, he said.
“The idea of any bank saying to clear your arrears in 30 days or we are taking your property is absolutely madness and that is what you have done to nearly 2,200 customers, which have tenants in them and when fixed asset receivers are appointed these tenants are going to be evicted… that is what’s happening here.”
“You have hung your customers out high and dry, you have fed them to these vultures,” he told Howard, adding:
This is policy of the vulture fund you sold your customers to, and you wash your hands and say it is nothing to do with us anymore. Shame on you. Shame on you for what you have done. We warned you this is what was going to happen, this is what vultures do.
Have you no regard to the people that made your bank profitable during good times and who are finding it hard themselves to make full payments back, and are looking for a bit of time, are looking for a bit of support, but are definitely not looking for this type of attitude…
Can you imagine you writing to your customers tomorrow morning to say to clear your arrears within 30 days or we are going to repossess your homes. People would take their accounts from your bank over night. They would say we are having nothing to do with that.
In reply, Howard said she was “not aware that practice is actually in place in Ireland” adding, “we will look at it”.
Another loan sale this year
She indicated that a further loan sale would be carried out this year, in order to reduce their non-performing loan ratio to below 10%.
She said the bank is contacting customers in a bid to get them signed up to sustainable solutions. Of 10,500 Ulster Bank, 2,000 mortgage-holders are in early engagement, 5,000 are deemed to be “engaging and co-operating” and of those, about 4,000 have been offered long-term solutions. About 1,000 Ulster Bank customers are being offered “different” solutions.
She said about 3,000 have not contacted the bank, which is “worrying”.
“If people contact and engage, we will be able to help them,” she said.
Doherty asked Howard if the customers in question at risk of being sold on are paying the maximum amount they are being asked to pay under an arrangement with the bank.
She said the customers “are paying but an insufficient amount to cover the mortgage”.
She said there are a whole range of reasons why people fall into arrears, stating that sometimes they “sad situations” such illness.
Doherty said vulture funds get away with such treatment of people because “they don’t give a damn”.
“You outsourced your dirty work to the vultures and you are about to do it again. Shame on you,” he said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Gay prods marrying Gay Catholics, Paisley just turned in his grave .
Peter Robinson will have another heart attack
Eating too much cake?
Mrs. Robinson playing away again?!!?
Well done, Belfast!
Good for them. Having a situation where your marriage can be legal in one part of the country and not in another part is lunacy.
It can be beneficial for Northern Ireland to plough its own furrow at times, compared to the rest of the UK. Not in this case though.
Orange is the new pink.
Should be noted that it was 2 members of the SDLP that abstained, a third of their Councillors…
SDLP is divided to the core on this issue.
start of many countries following Ireland
The disputed territory “Northern Ireland” isn’t a country
Eh, sorry john but Northern Ireland is a country, regardless of the perceived political status prescribed by you. It’s not an independent sovereign state but Mick didn’t say it was.
So return those green thumbs to their owners post haste; eh, you can probably keep the red ones.
My understanding of language is that it functions using objectively verifiable rules of semantics that are entirely independent from the number of green or red thumbs a post receives on the journal.
“England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards and the UK’s Office for National Statistics, uses “country” to describe England, Scotland and Wales.[3] Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a “PROVINCE” in the same lists”
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_3166-2_newsletter_ii-3_2011-12-13.pdf
But it’s not really a province though is it? Ulster is a province. Otherwise we need to give them back Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. I do accept that it’s typical for people to call it a province, a country and a region and that ambiguity is understandable given it’s unique status.
I know it’s complex mate, language is quiet difficult and can confuse mere mortals, but given it’s distinct geography, political status and the everyday use of this term to describe it, Northern Ireland is a country more than it is a “disputed territory”; I didn’t sign the good friday agreement but I know that much.
Carmo, your post was inaccurate. Just accept that you were wrong and move on. Northern Ireland is not a country.
@carmo. Northern Ireland is not a country. You cannot get an ni passport. It doesn’t offer consular services. Residents have a choice of passports – Irish or British
What is it then?
Give them back cavan, donegal and monaghan? Its more a case of us getting back the six counties.
They can have Cavan.
Monaghan too.
We’ll keep Donegal though.
Oh no, the Westboro Baptist Church are going to kick off again.
We were promised that if we voted yes this would stop. For the love of god will it ever end?!
Careful now, your stupidity is shining through.
The beatings will continue until gay rights improve.
For the love of God would people who are not interested in gay related articles please stop reading them or you will be forced to right a complaint about it in the comments.
Where is the Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign?
It attracted some fine Christians like Big Ian.
Oh, right.
It went the way of the Dinosaurs.
Ah here! It’s unfair to lump the dinosaurs in with the bigots.
But where’s big roaring Ian now? Slowly but surely turning to dust
Nonsense click bait headline, everyone knows popolous seeking Sinn Fein and left wing alliance control Belfast city council (hence the flag fiasco) , it will be defeated in Stormont.
Not everyone wants to implement neo-liberal idealology
You view equality as neo-liberalism?!? Yeah, you probably do, actually!
John, neoliberalism revolves around economics and regulation of business and the like. It has nothing got to do with dragging Ireland out of the 1950s with its views to gay people.
@Were. SSM is only available to 2% of the worlds population, are 98% of the world in your view stuck in the 1950s? How self righteous of you.
SSM was manufactured by left wing liberalists, the notion of it was unheard of a decade ago.
The ancient Romans had SSM.
Nonsense. Prove it! The romans also practiced slavery, put people to death by lions in front of large audiences and practiced pedastry since you’re looking to the ancients for how to enligten our society.
The Netherlands has had marriage equality since 2001.
But sure don’t let that inconvenient fact get in the way of your myth that it was “unheard of a decade ago”.
@John
Cool yer jets! You said the SSM wasn’t thought of more than ten years ago. I responded that there was SSM inAncient Rome, no need to undermine the whole of antiquity because a couple of blokes could get married 2,000 years ago. Oh, you have a computer, check it out for yourself!
True, neo-liberalism is a economic philosophy couched in Marxist language but the definition has broadened in recent times. A better description would be pseudo liberals or illiberal liberals.
Actually, this is a really interesting historical perspective on the history of same-sex marriage from the Guardian…
-
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/-sp-secret-history-same-sex-marriage
Well The Guardian is the prayer book of choice of the pseudo liberals.
Says the pseudo-intellectual.
If an ability to see through the flak of pseudo liberalism and remain sceptical of the latest fad I will plead guilty to that attempt at an insult.
Holy smoke theo and John, your arguments and phrasing across this comment section is wholly inconsistent, I’m not sure but I’m guessing it’s troll logic.
It tells that the demand for homosexual couplings to be recognized was constant, has been substantiated legally before hand and is not a “modern”, decadent “choice”.
@John, you are confusing liberalism in the social sense with liberalism in the economic sense. Completely different things mate.
Yeah John. But we won. Oh yes baby. And middle Ireland told freaks like you that you now are in the minority.
I’m still undecided. There still hasn’t been enough debate.
The gays are just as bad as girls seeking equality…….who cares what a couple people vote on in Belfast as it means feck all as its not law!
Women seeking equality now are they? Well that will never happen.
Now what time is the next diplodocus to Bedrock? I have to return my wholly mammoth vacuum cleaner for re-bristling.
Kinda like the time SF held a united Ireland referendum in, wait for it……………South Armagh, a resounding yes vote too by the way, who’d have thought.
Yeah we know – the majority of unionist politicians are bigots, and wish to block two consenting adults from getting married.
Yeah and the fact SF agree with same sex marriage just excuses the 30 years of murder and maiming they were involved in doesn’t it. Never seen a bigger shower of populist hypocrites in all my life.
You haven’t met the aaa yet so..
Well done to my Party Colleagues, progressive politics at its best!
Orange you glad they’re on the way
I’m not an Ulster Unionist but it’s only fair to say that Jeff Dudgeon also spoke in favour of gay marriage. All you equal rights champions will remember that it was Jeff’s case in Europe that led to decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland.
The article doesn’t mention any Ulster unionist speaking in favour but Jeff Dudgeon is an Ulster Unionist councillor. And Jeff’s case was ten years before David Norris had to do the same in the south. So the decriminalisation of homosexuality across Ireland was achieved by a unionist and someone who until some time last month was dismissed as a West Brit revisionist by republicans.
And while everyone’s slagging the ghost of Ian Paisley clerics in the republic are attacking yes voters in their congregations.
More like belslow Amirite
have your say