Economics

Lack of competition explains banks’ reluctance to improve savings rates – Central Bank chief

Gabriel Makhlouf says bank would like to see lenders move quicker to pass ECB interest rate hikes onto savers

Gabriel Makhlouf: ‘We know that inflation hits some – particularly the less well-off – harder than others.’ Picture: Patrick Browne

A lack of competition in the Irish banking market is partially responsible for the slowness of many lenders to increase the interest rates they pay on savers’ deposits over the last year, according to the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland.

Gabriel Makhlouf today told the Oireachtas finance committee that Ireland’s banks have been slower than its European counterparts to pass through to savers the benefits of rising interest rates imposed by the European ...