Mr. Jim Brown:

The key root cause of the incident related to a software failure that happened as a result of an upgrade to the system that processed the transactions. That was replaced quickly, but since then RBS has spent £750 million on upgrading the resilience of the systems overall and ensuring that a backup system is completely in place. Furthermore, we have the ability to run the Ulster Bank transactions completely separate from those of the rest of the group. A significant amount of investment has gone into this. The investment has been overseen by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is tracking progress to ensure that it is in place as we have committed.

Separately, we have improved governance within Ulster Bank so that we have better oversight on the IT arrangements that exist in RBS. We have a specific IT person working for Ulster Bank who is heavily involved in determining the IT priorities for RBS as well as monitoring the performance of the systems and the backup plans, as I have commented previously. We have seen a considerable amount of work and significant investment, with improved governance in the bank too.