Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

At the moment, my view is that March is probably too early. People should certainly not be planning on the basis that March will be the start of this. They certainly should not be doing financial planning on that basis. The honest answer is that it is too early to tell. We have made it clear, and I have said it in my statement, that we live in a period of uncertainty which, unfortunately, has gone on for quite some time. I said before the summer that I believed we were getting close to the top of the ladder as regards interest rate increases and I believe we are now there or thereabouts. In the ECB's statement, we made the point that we were going to - these were my words - hold rates there for a while. People who are saying that we are going to start to reduce rates in March are just speculating. There is nothing wrong with speculating but my personal view is that I would not speculate at this stage.