The Central Bank has begun keeping tabs on new marketing to consumers who have built up unprecedented savings during the pandemic to guard against potential misselling.

Officials at the regulator have been “actively monitoring” advertising pitches to cash-rich consumers since at least April, when the bank’s Covid-19 Task Force gave an update on the matter to the Central Bank Commission.

According to minutes of the meeting, members of the commission asked about “evidence of increased targeting of consumers” and any changes in customer behaviour had been observed alongside the increase in deposits in the banking system.

While no new products have yet been introduced to the market to hoover up the billions in idle savings sitting in customer accounts, CBI director of consumer protection Gráinne McEvoy said there had been an increase in marketing aimed at those with surplus funds.

She said the bank was looking closely at the issue, while director of financial stability Vasileios Madouros was updating his team’s “adverse scenarios” in the context of post-Covid financial stability.

Central Bank economists have estimated that Irish households put away €10bn in excess deposits, or 8pc of disposable income, between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of this year.

That money is being kept at historically low interest rates, meaning savers are getting poor returns. Because most of the deposits are so-called “enforced savings”, the Central Bank expects about half of them to return to the economy as new spending.

The potential spending boost would be equivalent to adding five percentage points to aggregate consumption – similar to the estimated spending released from maturing SSIA accounts in the mid-2000s.

But the remaining €5bn is a rich prize for wealth managers, stockbrokers and insurance firms selling investment products.

The concern among regulators is that financial firms could repeat some of the mistakes of the Celtic Tiger by pushing inappropriate investments on savers.

However, regulators are also considering the benefits for the economy in how those deposits might be used.

Deputy governor Ed Sibley noted in the meeting that part of assessing the financial system’s resilience included looking at upside risk in how the high amounts of savings might be utilised.

Research by the Central Bank in March found that those in the top income groups have both the greatest total savings and the highest propensity to spend the most.

The top 30pc of earners have 50pc of the savings and spend more than the average on personal care, going out and culture, which have only recently opened up again to the public after months of lockdown restrictions.

Despite the massive accumulation in savings, Irish banks had not increased their lending, except in mortgages, which have recovered after a sharp initial contraction early in the pandemic.