Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

It is not just tied to the cash-back piece. AIB is a brand. We are fortunate, as Dr. Hunt said, that we have multiple brands in the market. We have AIB, EBS and our broker brand through Haven Mortgages. We have for some time differentiated those brands in terms of how they operate in the market. The reality is that a significant group of customers, probably 30% to 40% of the market, want cash-back as part of their solution. It works for them. They get it up front. They get the benefit of that. That is what they enjoy.

The AIB brand itself for a considerable number of years has laid out price as key. This is both for front book and back book pricing and not just competitive pricing. Therefore, on the EBS side, we price differently and have always done so. This is not just because of the cash-back, but also because of the type of proposition we have there. Even within the grouping, when one compares others with AIB’s front book and back book pricing, we will find that AIB stacks up favourably. Looking at other cash-back providers, they go well beyond what EBS provides. It is not just an EBS issue in that regard. We are meeting the customer demands. Customers are looking for cash-back. EBS is our channel to market for cash-back. On the AIB side, that is where we come to market in terms of pricing, especially on the new to bank.