Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I am not sure I will be able to help the Deputy any more than through my earlier answer, which is that we expect lenders to make an assessment of the creditworthiness of the borrower. In the specific example he gave, I do not, and would not be expected to, understand what exactly the bank was looking at. However, it needs to make an assessment of the creditworthiness of the borrower, and clearly, in the example given by the Deputy, an assessment was made.

It is in the interest of everybody, and not just the banks and the individual borrower he mentioned, but the community as a whole, that we make sure lending and borrowing are done in a safe way. They should be done with a view to the long-term nature of what is happening here which is, as I said earlier, that these are long-term financial transactions. It is not short-term borrowing. The question that need to be asked, both by borrowers and lenders, is: can I sustain this borrowing?