has decided to stop providing specialist loans of up to €60,000 to graduate entry medical students from July, citing falling demand and the fact that deferred repayments on the product results in accumulated debt by the end of the term.
He added that the product “has accounted for a very small volume of our overall lending and the number of applications has dropped in recent years, while our other loans became more popular”. Still, news that the product, which allowed graduate-entry medial students borrow up to €15,000 each year over a four-year period of study, at a 6.5 per cent annual percentage rate of interest, is being dropped has been met by disappointment in some quarters.
Bank of Ireland’s other deferred-payments product, offering maximum loans of up to €14,000 to undergraduate medical science students, which also requires a guarantor, will also be closed to new applications from the end of July.