Thousands of people are borrowing too much, encouraged by banks' "hard-sell tactics", the Irish League of Credit Unions CEO said today.
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Mr Liam O'Dwyer said commercial banks were "bending over backwards in their attempts to lure people into taking out loans and are indulging in lending practices that they themselves would have frowned upon in the recent past".
Speaking at the UCC Credit Union Studies Summer School Mr O'Dwyer said banks were "throwing the financial services text-book out the window" and ignoring the maxim that you should never take out a loan for longer than the life of the asset you are purchasing.
"If some of the marketing 'speak' was taken at face value, you would almost think that some financial institutions were providing money for nothing.
"But, of course, that's not the case and people will often find themselves paying much more than they envisaged at the outset," he said.
Urging Credit Union members to borrow prudently Mr O'Dwyer said his organisation offered headline interest rates comparing "very favourably with those being quoted by the banks".
