Services sector growth sees strong bounce in November
The country’s service sector growth bounced back strongly last month from a seven-year low as business confidence rose to its highest level since June amid firmer demand from customers, a survey showed today. A slowdown in manufacturing activity had threatened to spread in October to the services sector, where a long expansion in new orders […]
Central Bank to assess commercial property-focused funds
The Central Bank will conduct a “deep dive” into the role of property funds in the domestic commercial real estate sector and assess whether a macroprudential response is needed to any potential risks, Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said today. Research from the Central Bank showed that Irish investment funds now account for more than 35% of […]
No change to Central Bank’s mortgage lending rules
The Central Bank has decided not to make any changes to mortgage lending rules here that limit how much people can borrow from banks in order to fund house purchases. Following a review, the regulator has concluded that the measures continue to meet their objectives of strengthening bank and borrower resilience. It also said the […]
First-time buyers drive demand for mortgage approvals
New figures from Banking & Payments Federation Ireland show strong growth in mortgage approvals figures for October, driven by demand from first-time buyers. The BPFI figures show that a total of 4,514 mortgages were approved in October . Of these 51.6% were for first-time buyers while mover purchasers accounted for 27%. BPFI also said that […]
Contactless payments grow steadily; BPFI
Consumers made almost 1.5 million contactless payments a day between July and end-September, according to figures from the Banking & Payments Federation. Contactless payments are those where consumers ‘tap’ their cards or devices and make payment without inputting a code on the payment device. The number of such payments grew by 44% year on year […]