Central Bank governor Philip Lane has opened the door to examine whether a solid record of rent payments or car loan repayments could be used by banks when assessing mortgage applications.

Amid continued controversy of high variable rate mortgage fees, Prof Lane has also pledged to examine measures to make it easier for the holders of such home loans to switch banks.“That is something the bank can work on, making the switching process easier.”

As he defended the mortgage caps introduced one year ago by the bank, Prof Lane said he imagined that banks would value such evidence in terms of reliability of a given couple to make repayments.

“What you say about track records coming from rents we can definitely look at that,” he told the Oireachtas finance committee.

Rent payments were “exceptionally relevant” for loan-to-income ratios, but not for loan-to-value ratios, he said.

While the bank has promised to release the result of a formal review of the home-loan caps by November, Prof Lane has said the rules could be loosened, tightened or kept unchanged in light of the review.

On variable-rate mortgages, the Central Bank governor said he not could interfere in contracts between banks and their customers.

However, he cited the ease with which mobile-phone customers could switch contracts and indicated the bank was working on a similar system for mortgage customers.

“I agree there is not much switching going on,” he told the committee.

“The bank’s own research indicates there is more than you might think, where households could benefit from switching. One of our goals is to make that switching process easier.”

Prof Lane said the bank aims to recruit 150 new staff this year. To date the European Central Bank has acquired €7.6 billion in Irish sovereign debt under its quantitative easing scheme, he said.