Mr. Ed Sibley:

To supplement Professor Lane's answer, there are well over 100 applications either for new licences or extensions to existing ones. That is a relatively meaningless number in some respects because at one end are the likes of Barclays Bank and the Bank of America and, at the other end, are small investment firms or payments institution which have low levels of employment and will have low impact. That is the full spectrum.

We have ensured that we are applying a rigorous, robust, transparent and predictable authorisation process that respects and is consistent with our role as gatekeepers to ensure that we are protecting financial stability and consumers here and from a wider European perspective. We touched earlier on the fact that, from the very start of this kind of trend, we have engaged effectively in the various European forums on banking, asset management, investment firms and so on to ensure that the regulatory and supervisory approach is consistent across jurisdictions so that the firms making choices to go to Paris, not Dublin or Frankfurt, not Paris are making that decision based on factors other than the softer or lighter touch regulation they would get in a certain jurisdiction.

There were one or two isolated instances of that at the very start but the work we pushed in European forums, and which was subsequently taken up by other competent authorities, has focused on making sure that we continue to converge regulatory standards to have a robust and consistent approach.