A Central Bank inquiry into former Permanent TSB (PTSB) chief executive, David Guinane, for suspected regulatory breaches in relation to the lender’s role in the tracker mortgage scandal will hold its first public meeting later this month.
An inquiry management meeting on the case will take place on Monday, June 26th, in a building at the Central Bank campus in Dublin’s north docklands, according to a notice on the regulator’s website, which did not identify the individual that is subject to the inquiry.
The official in charge of the inquiry, UK barrister Peter Hinchliffe, has held four case management meetings in private since February of last year.
The Central Bank said in November 2021 that it was setting up an inquiry into an unnamed former PTSB manager as it had “reasonable grounds to suspect that” the individual had “participated in the commission of a suspected prescribed contravention” of part of the Consumer Protection Code 2006 by the bank. The Irish Times subsequently reported that Mr Guinane was the subject of the inquiry.
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It is the first known move by the regulator to pursue an individual for an alleged role in the industrywide debacle.
The case was linked to the regulator’s previous enforcement action against PTSB that led to the bank being fined €21 million in May 2019 for the “unacceptable harm” it caused certain tracker mortgage customers, including some who lost their homes, when it wrongly denied them their discounted rate.
A spokesman for the Central Bank again declined on Tuesday to confirm the identity of the individual that is subject to the inquiry.
The decision to move to an inquiry suggests that Mr Guinane did not reach a settlement agreement with the Central Bank as part of an investigation and that he believes he has a strong defence.
Mr Guinane did not immediately answer a call or text message sent to his mobile phone on Tuesday.
PTSB was the first bank to be fined in relation to its involvement in an industrywide scandal, going back to 2008, that resulted in lenders denying more than 41,000 borrowers their right to a cheap mortgage linked to the main European Central Bank rate – or putting them on the wrong rate entirely.
Total tracker fines against seven lenders subjected to enforcement investigations have come to almost €279 million.
