Mr. Ale? Bla?ek:

As a universal bank, your customers and your competition require you to make processes digital. You have to invest a lot in other technological aspects like handling of data, cybersecurity etc. You have those duties to society, to yourself and to the regulator. That is one part.

The other part is that generally, banking is more and more regulated. This is not only in Ireland; it is a global trend. There is the cost of regulation. One has to spend that money. It does not matter what is happening; one has to spend that money. With the technological transition and the regulatory compliance costs, there are two big costs which you have to invest in. In order for appropriate returns to be made on that investment, you need to have a critical mass of customers as a bank. If there is a smaller market, which is measured by the number of citizens, inevitably one cannot sustain as many universal banks as a much bigger market such as the United States of America, which has many more universal banks because its market is many times bigger.