Mr. Nick Ashmore:

I thank the Deputy for his kind comments. The use of the wholesale model was something we looked at and came up with based on the precedent of seeing it within a lot of other European countries especially Germany with KfW. We saw a key benefit of that being its ability to drive competition, but also it was a very effective way of using the initial raw material we were provided with, namely, long-term, low-cost liquidity. We think we are having an impact in terms of competition as a result of that in that there are now five new non-bank on-lenders providing finance that they were either doing on a smaller scale or were not doing at all. We will continue to add on-lenders and to grow the competition.

There are, however, areas in which we have not yet achieved traction. One is non-bank term lending. It is certainly a key ambition for us to try to get someone into the market in that area, but it does bring with it further complications in terms of barriers to entry such as lack of a distribution network and teams and expertise on the ground in Ireland. We continue to work our way to try to be a catalyst to see that happen.

For the terms of the liquidity we provide, the wholesale model works very well. In terms of the risk sharing, again there is an opportunity there to work with multiple parties, in particular risk-sharing schemes or perhaps bilaterally down the line, but by sharing risk we are leveraging their expertise, their teams and distribution networks to get the support out the door in an efficient manner. We can take relatively small amounts of capital and leverage them into much larger volumes of loans, as we did with the agri-scheme. We think it is a particularly effective model. However, we are a new organisation and we continue to look at other ways of doing things, and if there are better ways of doing things for specific market failures, then we will bring them forward to stakeholders and to the board for review.

The lines of business strategy we have adopted now allow us to continue with the on-lending and with the risk sharing in supporting and delivering the existing activities but also within those to explore new ways of using the resources and solving market failures that are there already or that arise in the future.

In terms of marketing we actively promote the SBCI brand. Our vision is that an SME considering an investment or action should ask whether there is an SBCI option that could support it and potentially go into an on-lender and ask for the SBCI product. We cannot guarantee, given the scale of the banks and other institutions, that the first person they meet will also be aware, so marketing is also focused on front-line bank staff for instance. The on-lenders themselves have been very active in promoting SBCI funding through their own advertising, marketing and media campaigns, so it really is a joint effort. It is individual institution by institution but also on our own.