Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

As a matter of course, we stress-test for 2% and as we go forward, that is something we have under review in terms of changing that at the moment. In light of where we are seeing interest rates go, that is proving to be prudent. The vast majority of our customers are opting for fixed rates at the moment. Consequently, as Dr. Hunt mentioned earlier, the majority of our book, in terms of the size of our book, is over 50% fixed rates, which is also a good position for customers to be in as a lot of them would have gone on to those rates in recent times, be they three, four or five-year rates.

As for what is coming through in terms of customers being in difficulty or distress, I mentioned earlier that unfortunately, there is a routine situation in any event where customers find themselves in difficulty for different reasons that are outside the environment we find ourselves. We have not seen any uptick in relation to that activity yet. However as Dr. Hunt mentioned, we analyse all types of data which is which is something completely peculiar to what we did when the financial crisis hit. It is similar to what we did when Covid-19 hit, so we are able to see spending patterns on accounts, credit cards, turnover, unpaids etc. that would give us early warnings in terms of what would happen. That gives us the ability in some instances to reach out to customers in advance.

I must say something that we saw throughout Covid-19, which was transformative from what we saw through the financial crash and which Deputy Durkan also mentioned, namely, that in respect of engagement with the banks, customers are now really willing to come forward and identify early that they may have a problem. We have already seen customers do what we would call financial planning; they are looking at their circumstances, they can see some stress coming into their lives and we are able to put in place solutions with them and work with them in that regard.