AIB has refunded more than €250,000 to customers it mistakenly charged for stamp duty on their credit cards, RTE has learnt. The bank has issued an apology to the 3,700 customers wrongly charged.
Just over a year ago, AIB chief executive Eugene Sheehy announced the end of the bank's investigation into over-charging, an exercise that cost it in excess of €65m, between customer repayments and charity donations.
The bank said at the time that valuable lessons had been learnt and that comprehensive action had been taken to prevent any of the issues arising again.
But in the last few weeks, it has had to write to more than 3,700 credit card customers apologising to them for charging them for Government stamp duty during periods they were not resident in Ireland over the last ten years. The bank has refunded €266,000 to them as a result - an average of €70 a customer.
In a statement to RTE last night, AIB said it had come across the error in an overall review of charges, adding that it had reimbursed customers with interest and procedures were now being put in place to ensure it did not occur again. The Financial Regulator said it had been made aware of the error and the refund.
