Ms Anne Marie McKiernan:

I have called publicly for more leadership at sectoral level to enable the sector to deal with its particular structural challenges. As the majority of credit unions are at the smaller end of the scale, sub-€25 million entities, they are going to find it very difficult to undertake the investment required in new technologies or platforms to retain younger, active borrowers, who increasingly expect their financial services to be conducted via technological means. It is extremely difficult for individual smaller entities to undertake these proposals and in that sense sectoral leadership would be of importance to help them. Undoubtedly, sector-wide representative bodies have focused increasingly on the need to develop the business model and we work very closely with them. Our engagement is based on understanding their proposals, challenging them for improvement, ensuring all appropriate risks are identified and that proposals are based on current realities in the sector. There should not be too big a gap between where it might need to go and from where it is coming. I believe they find this input very constructive.