Mr. Niclaus Bergmann:

Of course we are talking about competitive interest rates. We have an approach which is not shareholder-value driven. It is not about earning money but fulfilling a task. Also, a public bank has to cover its costs – that is clear. It is a question of how to organise the public bank in an efficient way so that the costs are kept low. However, when the costs are low and there is no shareholder who wants to make a large profit, then this automatically translates into the lower interest rates that we would probably find today in the Irish banking market.