Professor Philip Lane:

This goes back again to the role of the regulator. Last week, Patrick Honohan mentioned the absence of a central credit register. When the committee gets to talk to individual bankers, maybe they will be able to say more. Maybe each individual bank was insufficiently clear about the total indebtedness of these individuals. These individuals might say to one bank "here is my situation". If they are simultaneously borrowing from many different banks, maybe the collective risk exposure is bigger than what was visible to each individual bank.