Mr. Stephen Bell:

The economic concession is a product which lowers the interest rate to as low as 0.5% for a period as long as seven years to help customers reduce the amount they pay. This allows them to pay down the capital outstanding on the mortgage because most of the payment is going to capital reduction and not interest servicing. We have offered the split mortgage to all the customers who eventually took the economic concession option. In almost every case the customers prefer the economic benefit of the economic concession to the split mortgage. All of the 1,885 customers who have taken an economic concession would have been offered a split mortgage but have said "no". We told the committee at the previous meeting that the total cost of credit the customer pays for a split mortgage is higher than for an economic concession. This is a matter of fair choice from opportunities made available to the customer.