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Mr Guinane was the only individual pursued by regulators for his role in the tracker mortgage scandal, which spanned all of the main Irish banks. At a hearing last year, Mr Guinane said it was “extraordinary” that no other banker had ever been the subject of a public inquiry in relation to tracker mortgages, and insisted he was been singled out. That’s likely to be central to his appeal to the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal (IFSAT). This tribunal, chaired by former Supreme Court judge John MacMenamin, is a Government-appointed body that can hear and determine appeals against certain decisions taken by the Central Bank. It will not reopen the inquiry but will review how it came to its determination. Earlier this year Peter Hinchliffe, the British barrister who oversaw the Central Bank inquiry, concluded that David Guinane, the former chief executive of Permanent TSB, should be held responsible for the bank’s failure to act in the best interests of tracker-mortgage customers in 2009, in breach of consumer protection rules. However, Mr Hinchcliffe found David Guinane did not have any intention to harm or take advantage of customers, and that the ultimate responsibility for regulatory compliance at the time lay with the board of the Irish Life & Permanent Group, of which he was not a member. A written decision on the case published by the Central Bank on October 29 confirms for the first time the penalty imposed on Mr Guinane was a fine of €80,000 and a reprimand. He had faced a potential fine of as much as €500,000 and the inquiry could also have made him responsible for some of the inquiry costs, but determined not to do so. The relatively low figure reflects the inquiry finding that he was not guilty of dishonesty and should have been given better support by his employer at the time of the breaches. The enforcement division of the Central Bank had pushed for a penalty, in order to send a clear signal to the financial services division. The inquiry looked at allegations relating to PTSB between January 2009 and April 2010. Mr Hinchliffe, on November 8 last, issued his findings to the participants. He had concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Guinane had participated in PTSB’s failure to ensure that it acted fairly and in the best interests of customers who indicated their intention to return to a tracker-rate loan. “During the relevant period, PTSB adopted a process that avoided offering the original tracker rate to which certain customers… were entitled, unless a customer queried or complained about the rate they were offered,” he concluded. “Mr Guinane’s participation arose… as a result of his failure to consider the implications for customers when signing off on a proposal to adopt that process.” Six years ago PTSB was fined €21m for overcharging tracker-mortgage customers after a Central Bank investigation.
