Professor Philip Lane:

No. A new credit register has recently been set up, and information all loans to individuals goes into that. It is an alternative to the traditional credit bureau which was owned by the banks. It is an important new source of information which will allow banks to see the whole profile of an individual's debts, and not just vis-à-visone bank but with other banks, as well as any history of difficulties. That is starting now and it is a new piece of information. There will soon be a second register called AnaCredit, a European-wide credit register for bigger businesses. There will, therefore, be a similar database of debt for these businesses. This is intended to improve the information available to lenders to assess credit risk more accurately.