The general equilibrium result does not necessarily mean that credit available to households and businesses will be reduced as a result of these reforms, and that is part of the job of the impact study that is performed through this Basel committee, the international committee. It's partly what it means for the banks, but also what all these changes mean collectively--what are they likely to mean for economies and for availability of credit?
The other issue, Mr. Chair, is how attractive, in relative terms, is lending from a capital perspective versus trading in capital markets activities. One of the things the crisis has revealed is that the amount of capital that was set aside under Basel II regulations was very low relative to the activity in trading books and capital markets activities. Now, that has been very quickly rectified with an adjustment for trading-book capital. I would defer to the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, but I believe that is coming into force in the first quarter. It is agreed, but it's effectively coming into force now.
