Ulster Bank preparing to freeze 2,000 accounts after 'last attempt' to engage with customers
ULSTER BANK HAS said it is confident that it has the resources to “handhold” vulnerable customers towards a new provider by the end of March, as it begins to freeze active accounts.
The Department of Social Protection and the bank are making efforts to engage with customers in areas where the numbers are highest, using social media and advertising campaigns.“We are going to then get down into very small numbers of customers who potentially are very vulnerable customers,” Elizabeth Arnett, director of corporate affairs at Ulster Bank, told TDs and senators today.
In her opening statement, Ulster Bank chief executive Jane Howard said that since November, it has frozen around 126,000 accounts “that we believed customers were no longer reliant on”.Howard said that when these accounts were frozen, there was no spike in the opening of other accounts, which leads them to “categorically conclude” these are not being used as people’s main accounts.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty asked would people be still entitled to redeem cheques that had not been cashed in time.“After six months, as you say, the cheque then is no longer legal tender and wouldn’t be capable of being cashed,” Howard said.
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