Ms Anne Marie McKiernan:

Are we talking about worst-case outcome in terms of returns on investment, falling loan books or saving rather than borrowing members? We could extrapolate many negative trends. That is a stress-test-type scenario. It is not a central forecast of what the future of the sector might be. Obviously, regulators in general do consider stress outcomes because they highlight what risks lie ahead if pre-emptive actions are not taken. We have carried out stress-testing in the past which provided the opportunity to make significant changes to arrest the worst outcomes. I will not give a particular number of credit unions that could become unviable on the basis of the numerical extrapolation of numbers in respect of which the Deputy and I could differ as to the basis on which they were arrived at. However, what we are highlighting is that there are certain matters and current trends that show it is important to make changes now to build on the financial and operational resilience that has grown since the crisis due to measures by credit unions, the registry and others, and use this better resilience now and rising regulatory compliance as the opportunity to deal with the structural factors.