{"id":662192,"date":"2026-10-22T15:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662192\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T15:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T15:30:12","slug":"are-more-mortgage-rate-increases-likely-after-ptsb-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662192\/","title":{"rendered":"Are more mortgage rate increases likely after PTSB hike?"},"content":{"rendered":"

PTSB today announced it is increasing interest rates on its fixed-rate mortgages.<\/p>\n

It is the first of the main pillar banks to announce such a hike since the European Central Bank introduced two rate rises between June and September.<\/p>\n

What will this mean for borrowers, and will other lenders follow suit?<\/p>\n

Was this expected?<\/p>\n

The PTSB increase<\/a> does not come as a shock.<\/p>\n

According to the Central Bank, inflation for the year is likely to come in at around 3.4% – which is well above the generally accepted healthy target of 2%.<\/p>\n

To bring the rate back towards that 2% target across the euro zone, the ECB has introduced two separate interest-rate rises since June, totalling half a percentage point.<\/p>\n

This means banks have to pay extra to borrow the money they lend out, and until now they have absorbed these increases.<\/p>\n

But from today that has changed, with PTSB the first pillar bank to hike mortgage rates for borrowers since those ECB rises.<\/p>\n

The lender is increasing interest rates on its fixed-rate mortgage products by a weighted average of 0.3 of a percentage point.<\/p>\n

This means the rises will range from 0.2% to 0.35%, depending on the length of the fixed-term of the mortgage, the size of the loan, and the size of the loan relative to the value of the property.<\/p>\n

There are no changes for PTSB customers on existing fixed rates and no changes to its variable rates.<\/p>\n

Importantly, the bank also says customers who have already received an offer letter for a mortgage will have 90 days – up until 19 January 2027 – to complete the drawdown of their loans at existing rates or before their current loan offer expires, whichever date is the earliest.<\/p>\n

Are other lenders likely to follow suit?<\/p>\n

That is the fear now, as once one bank moves it is more palatable for the rest to follow.<\/p>\n

We have seen a number of so-called non-bank lenders – the likes of ICS Mortgages, Nua Money, and Pepper Advantage – increase their interest rates in the last few months, however, PTSB is the first pillar bank to do so recently.<\/p>\n

In what might appear as an argument against more rises, last week AIB lowered its four-year fixed rate for mortgages over \u20ac250,000.<\/p>\n

But that move is largely being viewed as move to win some new business.<\/p>\n

It is expected the ECB will increase borrowing rates once more before the year is out, so it will get harder for other banks to hold out and keep their rates low – because their own borrowing costs will go up.<\/p>\n

All eyes will be on AIB and Bank of Ireland in particular to see if they make a move upwards.<\/p>\n

Will rate increases be good for savers?<\/p>\n

For anyone who can still manage to have spare money to put away amid the current cost-of-living situation, the current rate-rise trend is a positive.<\/p>\n

Off the back of the ECB increases, a number of banks – including the fintechs – have put their rates for savers up recently, albeit marginally.<\/p>\n

Bank of Ireland<\/a> today continues that trend, saying it is increasing interest rates across a range of its fixed-term savings accounts.<\/p>\n

The lender said interest rates on its six, 12 and 18-month Advantage Fixed-Term Deposits will go up by between 0.25% and 0.5% of a percentage point.<\/p>\n

But existing fixed-term deposit customers will continue to earn interest at their existing rate until the end of their current term.<\/p>\n

Though, the increase still leaves the top Bank of Ireland rate in terms of fixed-term deposits (2.48% AER for the 18-month account) a bit behind in terms of value when compared to the fintechs (for example Bunq and Raisin offer more than 3% AER for similar savings accounts).<\/p>\n

Higher rates for savers are definitely good news, and might encourage other banks to make similar moves.<\/p>\n

But the question some will ask now is: could this be a precursor to Bank of Ireland increasing mortgage rates in the near future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PTSB today announced it is increasing interest rates on its fixed-rate mortgages. It is the first of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-662192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}