Mr. Mario Draghi:

What the Commission is doing to this extent is going to be the future for the banking system in Europe. Completing the banking union and creating a capital market union will certainly lead to opening up the Irish financial services to competition. My perception is that this will change for the better in the future, coming also from domestic competition and from the non-banking sector, so that the natural course of events is one where people will find it easier, not more difficult, to access credit.

If there is one sector where the barriers to entry will be overcome, it is the retail banking sector. It seems to me that the whole business model is changing fast. The Senator will recall that we used to have banks with many branches and many people working in them. By and large, all of that is gone now. The sector is changing fast. It is changing in the direction of providing services to clients. That is the way to address this problem.