Dail committee to focus on credit card charges

The Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service is expected to take a strong line on the charges levied by credit cards and store cards when it draws up its report on the banking sector over the next few weeks.

The committee, which met yesterday to hear members' soundings on the issue of bank charges, is also likely to focus on establishing rules for the transfer of accounts from one bank to another and on the role of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) in consumer regulation.

Fine Gael finance spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, told his fellow committee members that they should examine how well the structure of IFSRA was meeting the needs of the general population.

"I remain concerned that the present infrastructure is going in two directions," he said, highlighting to IFSRA's combination of consumer protection with prudential regulation.

Mr Bruton is keen that the committee should recommend the creation of a code of conduct on how consumers could switch their bank accounts from one institution to another.

He also called for the establishment of an independent group to examine banking so that the existence of "rip-offs" could be tested.

He said the committee should recommend "immediate action" rather than waiting for the Competition Authority's findings on the banking sector.

Ms Joan Burton, Labour's finance spokeswoman, later urged the committee to accept recommendations on the clear publication of charges levied on store cards and credit cards.

Ms Burton believes that large numbers of Irish consumers are nursing unmanageable debts because they were never fully aware of the consequences of missed repayments.

She also called for a protocol to establish exact rules on how changes in the European Central Bank's interest rate could be passed on to Irish consumers, "so that customers can have confidence".

Fianna Fáil TD, Mr Ned O'Keeffe, was less convinced of the merits in regulation however, suggesting that the banking sector could already be "over-regulated".

"IFSRA is all over the place as far as I can see it," he said, adding that bank services, in his view, usually offer good value for money.

Mr O'Keeffe said other members of the committee could exaggerate the issue as much as they liked as they sought "cheap votes".