The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said that top executives from the country’s five main banks told him on Tuesday that the “review and design phase” of a new Irish Banking Culture Board (IBCB) has been completed. The board has been set up in the wake of the tracker mortgage scandal.

The search for an independent chairperson to head up the board will be completed in the final three months of the year, with the appointment of the wider board thereafter.

“This recognises the journey our banks are on is about more than standards and is about the culture that we all want in place across our banks in this country,” Mr Donohoe said in a statement. “I look forward to further engagement with the industry and the future chairperson of the board in due course.”

AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank told the minister last December that the intended to set up a banking standards board, modelled broadly on a similar board that operates in the UK, as the industry counted the reputational and estimated €1 billion financial cost of the country’s tracker mortgage controversy.

The board will be an independently led entity to ensure that the industry is focused on the best interests of the customer and leads to a sustainable banking industry that promotes the highest standards of behaviour and professionalism.

The new entity will focus on bank behaviour, ethics and culture, partner and complement existing structures and bodies such as the Institute of Bankers, and see to push the agenda that bankers engender standards and principles, rather than rules.