Mr. Andrew Blair:

Perhaps I should put this in context. The background to the initial allegations relating to this were made by Dr. Laurence Tomlinson in the UK. Those allegations were that the bank put companies into the global restructuring group in some artificial distressed manner. Those allegations were independently investigated by Clifford Chance, a firm of solicitors, in the UK and by Mason Hayes & Curran, another firm of solicitors, in Ireland. Those investigations showed no foundation for the argument that those customers were put in on a basis that was not appropriate. Since then, the Financial Conduct Authority has conducted its own investigation. That process is not yet complete and the authority's review has not been published. However, on 8 November, RBS announced that it was taking its own action pending the outcome of that review. The Financial Conduct Authority noted on that date that no evidence was found in the review that is ongoing that the bank had artificially engineered a position to cause customers to transfer to a global restructuring group, that any customers exhibiting signs of difficulty that went into a global restructuring group were exhibiting clear signs of difficulty and that there was no widespread practice of transferring companies for inappropriate reasons. There was no evidence that any assets acquired by the bank subsequent to that transfer were premeditated. On the other side, the authority also noted that communication with customers during that transfer process could have been better, that there was a focus on pricing increases for risk at the expense of due consideration of long-term viability and that the decisions made relating to customers were not well documented or explained. The final point made was that complaints were not well identified and handled by the bank. As a result of that, RBS in the UK announced a new complaints process with independent oversight from a former UK High Court judge and an automatic refund of what I would describe as complex fees, which is the expression used.

In respect of Ulster Bank Ireland DAC, clearly, the review by the Financial Conduct Authority only covers the UK. The Mason Hayes & Curran review, which was conducted on the original allocations, found no basis for those allegations and Ulster Bank has agreed. The bank will seek to provide exactly the same treatment to any similarly affected customers who are identified and that process has started and is ongoing. It will not be a very swift process but I do not think it will take an inordinate length of time to do. We have kept our regulator informed of where we are in that process. As soon as we have identified affected customers, we will be in contact with them.

I will make two further comments on this regarding the nature of Ulster Bank customers. It is fair to say that customers that transferred to the global restructuring group to a greater extent in the Republic of Ireland were those with commercial real estate exposure versus more SME-orientated businesses in the UK.

The incidence of the payment of so-called complex fees is expected to have been relatively low, for no reason other than that most customers just were not in a position to meet ongoing commitments, never mind fees over and above those.

With regard to the question on the transfer out of the global restructuring group, relatively few of the customers transferred out of the group back into Ulster Bank.