Ireland's Central Bank on Tuesday announced tougher targets for lending banks dealing with homeowners at risk of defaulting on their mortgages.

In a statement, the Central Bank said that in agreement with the Troika (IMF/EU Commission/ECB), it has now set its expectations of the banks in this regard and requires banks to have concluded arrangements with 15 percent of their over 90-day mortgage arrears customers by end of December 2013.

The Central Bank also said it is now setting expectations for end March 2014 for sustainable solutions offered to customers to reach 70 percent of over 90-day arrears and for concluded solutions to reach 25 percent.

According to statistics from the Central Bank, mortgage arrears continued to climb in the second quarter of this year, and more than 200 homes were repossessed by banks.

The figures showed more than 97,800 private residential mortgages were in arrears of over 90 days by the end of June, some 12.7 percent of home loans, compared with 12.3 percent in the previous quarter, or 95,554 loans. Endi

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