Bank of Ireland increase interest rates

Bank of Ireland have announced that they will be increasing the interest rate on their standard variable mortgage's by 0.5%. They did not increase their rates after the ECB rate hikes in April and July but have announced that they can no longer afford to absorb the cost of providing the lending facilities. Tracker mortgage customers rate would have automatically risen in line with the ECB rate. A increase of 0.5% adds €31 to the monthly repayment for every €100,000 owed.

Interest rates on overdraft facilities, personal and business loans will also increase by the end of the month.

In what could be positive news for mortgage holders, experts are now not only expecting the ECB to keep interest rates steady well into 2012, they are actually tipping that there could be a rate reduction on the cards. This is due to the fact that sluggish growth rates have meant that the risk of high inflation in the Eurozone has abated somewhat.

FS