Mr. Stephen Bell:

Ulster Bank is perfectly relaxed about split mortgages as a concept. Under our approach, the customer could pay down as much as that part of the debt that would have been warehoused during the forbearance period when the interest rate has been set low. The net economic effect is, therefore, the same. As we indicated to the joint committee in one of our first appearances before it, when we did the total cost of credit for a split mortgage against an economic concession for the same rates and terms, we found it was cheaper for the customer to have the economic concession than the split mortgage. The reason is that typically the market construct for the split mortgage is that the contractual rate applies on the non-warehoused portion and a zero rate applies on the warehoused portion. Net of those two factors, the customer can end up with a higher total cost over the life of the loan.