Professor Philip Lane:

Okay. I tried to point out in the opening statement that the new Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2015 seeks to maintain regulatory protection for borrowers whose loans are sold to these types of firms. I agree that there was a gap in the legislation but it has been filled. I note that various credit servicing firms are currently seeking authorisation from the bank. That process is in train, at least for the treatment of mortgages. These firms may well act differently from the local banks and so on and one difference is probably in terms of the level of regulation. Taking the entire process by which they have come into the market from a global level, the fact that Irish banks and various creditors were able to transfer some of their troubled loans to global investors is a very common pattern in many crisis countries. Essentially, the risk for a loan being repaid is transferred from the original creditors to these firms. In many cases, the issue is politically controversial because there is less of a domestic stake than with a local bank but it is part of the crisis management process. It is definitely part of the method by which the Irish economy has recovered; this was done by the transfer of some amount of the troubled loans to outside investors. To the extent that we can, we will ensure these companies treat their debtors in the same kind of way as they would under domestic regulations. The new Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2015 does that to an extent.