Ms Francesca McDonagh:

There was a question about broadband. We have made a significant investment in our mobile banking app, with a 50% increase in functionality. The app can be accessed without broadband through mobile networks, which have a different level of coverage.

I will now address the broader question of repossession and dealing with and supporting customers who have experienced loss, including death by suicide. For the past 12 months, we have paused all repossession orders. I do not have information to hand on historical or future numbers. We can revert offline in writing. We have not executed, implemented or progressed any repossession orders for the last 12 months, given the external environment and the challenges faced by customers during the pandemic.

On supporting customers in financial distress, we have a long track record as having the lowest level of non-performing exposures, especially of retail customers, within the industry. I will give the committee a perspective in terms of scale. For owner-occupier mortgages that are more than 90 days past due, Bank of Ireland has only 1.9% of customers in that situation, while the figure for the industry is above 6%. The Bank of Ireland figure is a fraction of the industry average. We are a big part of that industry and the average figure includes us. For buy-to-let mortgages, we have 4% of customers who are 90 days past due. The industry average for that sector is 16%.

We are in a far stronger position with regard to the quality of our portfolio and in the quality of engagement support we provide our customers. We engage with the customer and in nine out of ten scenarios we find a solution that is sustainable for and accepted by the customer. For the customers who are personally impacted and vulnerable, whether it is a circumstantial vulnerability due to bereavement, illness or other challenges, we have established a specialist vulnerable customer unit for all customers, whether they are in financial distress or not. The unit received 4,500 calls during 2020. We have a specialist team in our credit loan support, who are among our most experienced and specialist advisers, to support customers who have greater level of vulnerability or who have suffered a loss.

With regard to Ulster Bank, we take all opportunities to look at portfolios and acquisitions. Among the Irish banks, Bank of Ireland has done the most portfolio acquisitions in recent history. We did eight acquisitions of portfolios in the past five years. We are not being quoted as currently engaged with Ulster Bank. We focus on opportunities that add strategic and commercial value for our full stakeholder range. I hope this answers the Chairman's question.

I believe I answered the question on remuneration and Davy. While not referring to Davy specifically, if we were to acquire an entity that had normalised pay, we would seek permission, as part of the current requirement under the stakeholder engagement relationship we have with the Department of Finance, for us to maintain the existing remuneration arrangements in an entity if we were to acquire it. That is a generic response to the Chairman's question.

I have presented to this committee many times specifically on tracker mortgages. I made it a personal commitment to address the issue. We have a 99.8% contact and remediation rate with customers. In total, there are only 37 customers who we continue to trace. There were 800 customers before but we have successfully traced them. We have put a significant amount of effort and resources into this. We use an independent panel, which is a requirement of the tracker mortgage examination. These are senior, independent people who review any customer appeal if customers feel they have not secured an outcome from the bank that they feel is fair. If a customer makes an appeal, it goes directly to that independent panel. The customer also has the choice to go to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, which will review all complaints. We try to work with all customers and the numbers reflect our commitment to address the tracker issue. I hope I have addressed all of the Chairman's questions.