Ms Elizabeth Arnett:

One could divide our response in two broad types of activities. One is based on behaviour and culture and the other is operational changes. On operational changes, first and foremost, we are looking to ensure that our documentation is very clear and there is no ambiguity within it. We have simplified our mortgage products to remove any ambiguity. We have looked at our full mortgage process to see if we can identify any risks within it. One might argue that if that had happened prior to 2000, looking at tracker mortgages and what aspects of risk were there, we might not be here today. Those are the types of steps that we have taken to examine the banks operations and how we can address the issues we have identified.

Importantly, we are examining behaviours and how our values as a bank, and have come a long way in how we expect our staff to behave towards customers.

We have come a long way in that regard in terms of our code, standards and policies and how we work that into the expectations of what staff do and how they behave. We survey every staff member, of whom there are 75,000 as we are part of the RBS group, across the entire bank to identify where, for example, staff members feel it is not acceptable or encouraged to raise issues in their section of the bank. We want to have a challenge culture such that a member of staff can challenge something with which he or she is not comfortable. We have put a big focus on risk management, in particular in Ulster Bank and very much led by the board, and being very proactive in terms of identifying risk to customers. Much has been done but we have a long way to go on those issues. However, we are very committed to achieving our ambition to be number one for customer service trust and advocacy.