Mr. Colm Kincaid:

It comes under that second pillar that I meant to mention about switching. In his remarks, the Governor made the point that we are focused on making sure that we have a consistent application of credit criteria across the system and that all people in the system have an opportunity to see what options might be available for them, including with other lenders, and access to those options on a consistent basis. The first thing we need to see play out in this is the extent to which borrowers with non-bank lenders have capacity to switch and choose to do so. We have put a lot of focus on making sure the right information is in people's hands. Not everybody will be in a position to do that. We then need to understand from the non-bank lenders that we are talking about - it is a portion of the 1,000 that the Deputy referred to - borrowers who cannot switch and borrowers who may face affordability issues, and understand the strategies and processes that those firms will have in place to deal with those borrowers. It is a live area of work for us.

Nothing I am saying in explaining what I have seen is to give the impression that we are finished or satisfied with the position as it is now. It is something on which we will be taking these firms to task in the weeks ahead to understand how they will deal with the situation.

To make the point about switching, we wanted to make sure. Last year we intervened on the resources in place within the lending system to make sure that where people look to switch, the application is assessed in a timely manner and there is good advice and information. Some of the borrowers will be able to switch. I would encourage any borrower in that scenario to pursue that.