Mr. Patrick Neary:

What they hadn't put in place was an arrangement whereby the Central Bank could accept collateral. The collateral that they had to offer wasn't in a form, I think, that was acceptable for the ECB to allow the Central Bank to provide liquidity to it. That was my understanding, and I think there was historical reasons for that because most of the collateral that, I think, is acceptable to the ECB is essentially in the form of portfolios of mortgages, and there's a discount on those and they gave out the facilities on the back of that. Now, when ... that requires that every mortgage document, to the best of my understanding, has to have a consent that the mortgage can be transferred from the originator of the mortgage to somebody else. Hence the securitisation, and all this that goes on, is done with the consent of each individual mortgage.

As I understood it at the time, the documentation in Nationwide, the individual mortgage documentation that they had, didn't have that facility. So they couldn't be transferred. So, therefore, it rendered it ineligible for the ECB direct assistance. So they had to construct an arrangement with the Central Bank, an elaborate arrangement for ... to identify assets and construct an arrangement whereby the Central Bank could give them liquidity. And I don't think that was done at the time. It was recognising that issue and putting an arrangement in place for that particular institution, which was different to the others.