Mr. Peter Nyberg:

As I said, it would have been impossible for banks to provide those amounts of credit to that small number of people unless everybody, directly or indirectly, thought it was okay. As I also indicated, the fact that the real estate market was supported by banks and, as I understand it, by budgetary means, meant that a lot of people, directly and indirectly, had an interest in that market continuing to go up.

There was no force to reduce that type of support.

When one looks at banks, it is true that the big losses come from the big loans which we were looking at within the commission of investigation. However, the main business of banks is to support smaller institutions, regular enterprises, households and so forth. That is why we want banks to continue to work well. For banks to be able to work well, they need to be able to access funds from depositors and the market. That is impossible if they are not seen as solvent.

It might be easier to think about it from the view that banks have balance sheets. They have assets and liabilities and, by definition, they have to be equal. If assets go down in some way, it comes from capital and solvency goes down. The business of banks is to provide loans against security to ordinary people, and they can do so only if those loans are repaid, that is, if those who give funding to the banks believe those loans are okay. If the banks give a large amount even of small loans that are not really okay, this means their solvency is put into question. I do not think it is fair to say people partied. People just lived a little better than they otherwise would have done because of the bubble.