Money Guide Ireland

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) BOSI is to shut down.

The bank, which earlier this year shut all it’s  Halifax branches in Ireland, is a division of UK finance giant Lloyds .

In a statement, the Lloyds Banking Group said there was little opportunity for Bank of Scotland (Ireland) (BoSI) to enjoy scalable growth in the future – and business would be transferred to Bank of Scotland
It is understood 830 staff are still employed by BoSI  in its St Stephen’s Green head office in Dublin and in regional offices in Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.

The bank plans to retain the majority of existing staff by transferring employees to an independent company to oversee administration of its remaining Irish business.

BOSI’s  other business operations in the Irish Republic, an insurance operation in Shannon, and the Halifax branch network and customer service centre in Northern Ireland are unaffected.

It looked like something was going on at Halifax Ireland when they recently raised mortgage rates for Irish customers whilst ECB rate were falling .

It was widely reported last week that  Antoinette Dunne – the head of retail banking for Halifax Ireland had resigned. Now there have been reports in the Sunday Tribune that Bank of Scotland Ireland (BOSI) is going to shut down Halifax altogether in Ireland from September 2009.
BOSI is now part of the Lloyds TSB  group – which is now 43% owned by the UK State. It looks like they may have had  instructions from the UK treasury to cease lending in Ireland .
Apparently the bank is planning to formally announce the plans at the end of August .

Halifax Ireland first  opened in January 2006 after BOSI acquired the  old ESB shop network.   Halifax did well in Ireland by introducing  tracker mortgages, interest paying current accounts and 0% interest on credit cards. They also offered evening and Saturday openings – still unheard of in most Irish  banks.
It is unclear what will happen to  current borrowers or account holders with Halifax in Ireland. As soon as there is more information – it will be posted here.

Yes – it’s not a typing error – Bank of Scotland Ireland have increased mortgage rates for new applicants as from today.

The rate for LTV under 80% is now 4.55% – it was previously 3.65% .

Fixed rates have also all risen – the 3 year fixed rate mortgage was 4.99% and is  now 5.89% .

Bank of Scotland Ireland is part of the same group as Halifax – HBOS .

Halifax has also increased mortgage rates in Ireland (the second time in recent weeks) . They have put rates up today by 0.9% for new customers . (Variable and fixed rates have risen). Halifax also appear to have withdrawn any financial help for mortgage switchers – but with those rates they won’t be getting anyone switching to them anyway.

The banking group had some bad press recently in the UK because after a UK government  bail out it was giving better rates in Ireland than in the UK.