Bank of Ireland has apologised to around 35,000 mortgage customers after it emerged that it had made an error affecting their repayment record which may impact their credit history.
The result of the mistake may be that those seeking to take out a new loan could experience difficulty getting approval while the issue is being rectified.
The problem affects around half of the 70,000 former KBC mortgage customers whose loans have migrated to Bank of Ireland in recent months as part of the deal between the two banks.
In a statement, Bank of Ireland said that as part of that process, the mortgage start date for a number of those mortgages was incorrectly inputted into its systems.
It said that because it was aware of the error, it did not submit the mortgage payment details to the Central Credit Register (CCR) for February and March while it is being fixed.
The CCR is a national database of customer and credit agreement information operated by the Central Bank to which all lenders must send customers' personal and credit information, including the date that they first drew down their mortgage loan.
"This was to prevent incorrect credit information being reflected on the customers’ credit report," it said.
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As a result, information relating to the particular mortgages were not submitted to the CCR for February or March – a gap which could impact the credit histories of the people concerned.
The bank has said it continues to withhold monthly reporting to the CCR until the error is fixed.
"We do not believe this error is likely to have affected the customer, but if somebody applied for a loan or another form of credit, the gap in the monthly updates to the CCR may have been seen by a lender, so they can use our letter as proof of the error."
The lender added that so far it has not had any confirmation of a loan application being impacted.
But it is updating the records as a priority and has also informed other lenders about the problem so that they are aware of it.
In a letter sent to affected customers, the bank said anyone seeking a loan who was experiencing difficulty getting approval because of the issue, could show the correspondence to the lender they are seeking to borrow from to prove what has happened.
The bank expects the credit register to be updated within the next few weeks and has said it will write to customers again once it has happened.
Bank of Ireland has apologised to the customers concerned for any inconvenience caused and has told them that they do not need to take any action.
