Mr. Peter Nyberg:

It was because banks invite people they find interesting to give decision makers their view on what it is necessary to do to be a good bank. They do it all the time. If Deputy Murphy remembers how it was at that time, what was important was international competition between banks. They should be large, international and compete with each other. There were also a lot of mergers between banks that were not doing well and those that could do well. The successful banks were funding themselves by selling highly valued stock, for instance. The banks that were doing badly were cheap because their stock was cheap. It appears that some boards were thinking in this way, either you grow fast and get profitable or you might be subject to a takeover or shareholder pessimism. They brought in people to ask them what they should do in this situation. They were usually people who had been to lots of other banks and could credibly say they knew the international bank market and so on.