Mr. Stephen Mason:

Just to be clear, what we are talking about is when we have gone through a process with a customer. The processes are detailed and involve sitting down with customers. We have completed standard financial statements, SFSs. The documents are very comprehensive. A banker has spent some time with the customer going through the process and we have a full understanding of the customer’s circumstances and we put what we believe is a sustainable solution in place for the customer that will work over the long term. Some customers have issues that are short term and we solve them.

Some customers, as the Deputy suggests, would be included in our long-term resolutions where they are able to pay interest only for a period, for example, somebody who has children in college. One can clearly see their difficulty. The difficulty is that for two or three years an arrangement is made with that customer that they would make a reduced repayment for that period and afterwards step back up the capital and interest payments when the issue that is causing the difficulty for the next couple of years has been resolved. What we try to do is accommodate our solutions to the circumstances of individual people.