Mr. Simon Carswell:

I believe there was a marked shift by the other banks, once they saw how much money Anglo was making. The other banks would also have seen Anglo championed by the investment community. The sheer scale of the profits made at Anglo was too tempting for the other banks - they really had to try and get a slice of the action. For example, AIB set up this win-back team to look at how it could get some of that business which Anglo was getting. The other banks also got involved, maybe not as aggressively as AIB. There was the added injection of foreign banks, particularly Bank of Scotland Ireland, owned by Halifax Bank of Scotland and also Royal Bank of Scotland through Ulster Bank, which very aggressively got into the market. The saying in AIB was that "Anglo joined us for breakfast and now it is eating our lunch." This shows the competitive edge there. Other banks were very concerned that Anglo was stealing the march on them, to the extent that Anglo might even mount a takeover for Bank of Ireland. That is how impressive Anglo's growth was and how much money it was making.