{"id":271575,"date":"2026-01-07T04:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/271575\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T04:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:49:16","slug":"ics-mortgages-raises-fixed-rates-as-ecb-hike-fears-pushes-up-market-funding-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/271575\/","title":{"rendered":"ICS Mortgages raises fixed rates as ECB hike fears pushes up market funding \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

ICS Mortgages<\/a> said it is raising fixed home loan rates by as much as 0.45 of a percentage point, stoking fears this could be the beginning of a fresh wave of hikes for Irish homeowners.<\/p>\n

The move follows an increase in its market funding costs in recent months as financial markets price in the prospect of the next rates move from the European Central Bank (ECB)<\/a> being upward. <\/p>\n

The revised rates, ranging from 0.1 per cent to 0.45 per cent for owner-occupiers, depending on loan-to-value banks, will apply to ICS\u2019s three-year and five-year fixed rates products from January 9th, said the brand, which is owned parent Dilosk<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Customers on existing fixed-rate products will not be affected. <\/p>\n

Non-bank lenders like ICS Mortgages led the last wave of rate hikes across the mortgage market in early 2022 as they were caught out by a spike in rates on bond and wholesale markets in anticipation off an aggressive series of ECB rate hikes to combat inflation. <\/p>\n

Unlike banks, such lenders do not have access to cheap household deposits for funding. Still, mainstream banks ultimately started to increase their rates after the ECB actually started increasing official rates in mid-2022. <\/p>\n

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\u201cWhile we continually seek opportunities to support borrowers through competitive pricing and innovative products, these fixed rate adjustments reflect the realities of the increase in swap market pricing over the past two months,\u201d said Ray McMahon, chief commercial officer at ICS. <\/p>\n

While mortgage rates declined across the market as the ECB reduced its benchmark deposit rate from 4 per cent to 2 per cent over 13 months to last June, traders are increasingly betting that the next policy move could be a rate hike. <\/p>\n

They have been emboldened by comments along these lines from ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel in early December, amid upside risks to inflation \u2013 even though she stressed that rates are likely to remain stable for the time being. <\/p>\n

ICS last raised fixed rates in late 2022.<\/p>\n

For now, there is little pressure on mainstream banks to follow ICS in increasing mortgage rates, said Joey Sheahan, head of credit at online brokers Mortgages.ie. <\/p>\n

\u201cICS is funded through the money markets and therefore more exposed to swap rate shifts. The 3-year and 5-year swap rates increased from around 1.85 per cent to 2.25 per cent recently and ICS is responding in a prudent way with these increases,\u201c he said. <\/p>\n

Similarly, non-bank lender Spry Finance, a provider of equity release mortgages to people aged over 55, has just announced a rate increase of 0.25 of a point, he said. Its fixed rates are for the full term of a loan. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn contrast, the main pillar banks in Ireland are heavily funded using deposits and less reliant on the money markets as a result,\u201d said Mr Sheahan. \u201cThis benefits borrower interest rates, but in turn can also be to the disadvantage of interest rates available to deposit account holders.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ICS Mortgages said it is raising fixed home loan rates by as much as 0.45 of a percentage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,138287,18,9652,89949,19,17,9650],"class_list":{"0":"post-271575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dilosk","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-european-central-bank-ecb","12":"tag-ics-mortgages","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-mortgages"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115852015580963484","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}