Mr. Eamonn Crowley:

We must consider the scale of banks and their ability to make a profit, especially in an environment with negative interest rates. I talked to the previous Deputy about the impact of the financial models of banks across Europe and levels of profitability. It means it is more challenging for a bank to remain profitable. It is necessary for banks to be more efficient and to spread their costs over income which has tended to fall in recent years. Naturally, we are coming at this topic from a slightly different place because we are somewhat smaller as an institution. We believe we have the capability to grow and provide more competition. Indeed, we believe we can grow our income over the coming years. However, it is an equation which involves factors such as scale, size and the amount of mortgage business, for instance, undertaken as a core product in the country.