Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher has said companies caught over-charging their customers must be subject to penalties and fines that are more punitive in order to ensure customers are not at a financial loss.

Kelleher, a member of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, was commenting after it was reported that AXA Insurance overcharged over 400 customers for motor insurance.

“In many cases, customers lost out financially to the tune of hundreds of Euro.

“Mistakes can happen, but repeated errors and mistakes that cost consumers money cannot be tolerated. Companies such as AXA, but also other companies in the utilities, tech or communications sectors, need to know that when they make a mistake, they will be penalised.

“There needs to be a higher level of diligence within these companies to identify and rectify these issues quickly. Many processes are now digitalised and automated so it cannot be blamed on human error. Scrutiny of these automated and digitalised processes must be robust and improved.

“Ultimately, these companies also make profit through interest accrued on these overpayments whilst customers are out of pocket.

“The Central Bank of Ireland needs to crack down, and crack down hard, on companies that repeatedly overcharge or make errors that are detrimental to their customers. It’s unfair and costly to customers.

“At a European level, I have consistently advocated for better value, more competitive financial products for the people of Ireland, but errors such as these simply undermine any progress being made at the EU level.

“Over the last few years, I also led the European Parliament’s work on strengthening cyber resilience across the financial sector.

“The approach applied to cyber security which requires consistent monitoring to identify cyber threats and respond quickly and effectively could be equally applied to other business processes and in doing so could prevent households from being unnecessarily out of pocket,” concluded Kelleher.