AIB’s Haven and EBS subsidiaries said on Tuesday they are increasing selected variable mortgage rates by 0.35 of a percentage point on May 18th, as Irish lenders continue to pass on some of the European Central Bank (ECB) rate hikes that have taken place since last July.
The rate on Haven variable loans for owner-occupier homes with less than a 50 per cent loan-to-value (LTR) ratio will increase to 3.1 per cent as a result, while the cost of loans with an LTR of more than 80 per cent will rise to 3.5 per cent.
EBS is moving on its buy-to-let variable rate to 5.43 per cent, though its owner-occupier rates remain unchanged.
The moves follow AIB’s decision in early February to raise its variable rates by 0.35 of a point, after a period during which fixed-rate products – by far the most popular are of mortgage business in the Republic in recent times – had been the main focus for rate hikes.
Still, Irish banks continue to trail European peers in passing on ECB rate hikes since the Frankfurt-based institution started to increase official rates in July. The ECB’s main lending rate has gone from zero to 3.5 per cent since then.
The lag is due to Irish rates already being among the highest in the euro zone when the ECB started increasing – and the fact that tens of billions of euros of surplus deposits from Irish banks have become increasingly profitable in the past nine months as a result of official rate increases.
