Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I do not know the specific decision-making process but I suggest that if there is another pandemic decisions will be made very quickly. This is what I expect. If this is the cause then I suppose it is a balance of judgment that management needs to make between looking after their staff and looking after the interests of their customers. Sometimes this can be a very difficult decision but sometimes it can be very straightforward. Occasionally, their legal obligations to their staff are absolutely paramount. I do not know exactly what happened in March in the cases the Deputy described but institutions, and not just banks, had to make very sudden decisions because of the pandemic. It was, and is still, an unprecedented shock. I am not surprised that actions were taken in the way the Deputy has described.