Mr. Matthew Elderfield:

It would be imprudent to make a prediction on what the number will be. We are seeing a slowing of the rate of increase, which is encouraging. Economists will tell one that it tends to lag unemployment by a couple of years. Given that unemployment has peaked and is declining a little, one would hope that the rate of increase would flatten out. There are, however, many uncertain drivers for that. The new personal insolvency framework is in the mix as well.

Our focus has been on trying to accelerate the pace at which the banks are tackling the mortgage arrears problem in two senses. They need to move faster and the solutions that are provided to customers need to be sustainable, rather than short term and lacking proper traction. We had a period in which we asked the banks for their mortgage arrears resolution strategies. If I remember correctly, we went in to the banks at the beginning of last year and found that their operational capability to process and get their hands around the arrears problem was very weak. Our staff did a third party report on that issue. Much of the intervening period has been about building the infrastructure. Banks are great at lending and being able to market but they were not very strong in collections and triaging these numbers. The operational base is now better, albeit not perfect.