Dr. Mark Cassidy:

If you are comparing countries, you would need to look at the overall framework for mortgage measures, and different countries have different measures in place. What we know is we introduced our measures in 2015 and since then, most EU countries have introduced some form of mortgage measures, whether loan-to-income or loan-to-value. In other countries, there are restrictions upon what they can introduce. Systems differ across countries but most countries now have something in place. Many have these type of loan-to-value measures because the cross-country historical evidence clearly suggests that 100% mortgages are risky loans for the reasons I outlined earlier. In comparing Ireland to Germany, you would need to compare the overall system but we would be very confident that 100% mortgages are overly risky both from the perspective of the borrower and that of the bank.