Professor Philip Lane:

I will say two things. At one level we are neutral. If they meet the conditions coming forward, we will authorise them. We recognise that for public banking to be introduced, such as the Sparkassen or Kiwibank model in New Zealand, which is quite interesting to study, it requires some public entity to capitalise those banks. Ultimately, it will be a policy decision somewhere in the State system that it wants to capitalise a bank. The Sparkassen provides one example; Kiwibank provides another. Around the world there are various State-owned banks. In one scenario, such as that of Kiwibank, in case the commercial banking system goes into crisis, it is important there remains a bank which is available.