After 150 years the Irish Civil Service building society (known as ICS and a subsidiary of Bank of Ireland) is set to close. The letter delivered to the intermediary channel is on the left.
ICS started before the formation of the State and was subsumed into Bank of Ireland in the mid 1980’s.
The relationship with mortgage brokers was long standing, although in recent years there were a few developments which caused it to lose market share.
ICS first took brokers away from Bank of Ireland in c. 2009, previous to this brokers could deal with either a local branch (we dealt with now closed Westmoreland St. branch) or via ICS.
Then they reduced procurement fees, lastly they engaged in ‘dual pricing’ where it was cheaper to go to BOI than to ICS. All of these things were perhaps justified in the view of ICS but it didn’t mean people would then borrow from them and these things combined lead to less broker support …