Thanks, Ms. Hannam, for being here today.
I was very interested to hear about the microfinance programs Scotiabank operates in Peru and in other places. I noticed you didn't mention that you have a microfinance operation in Haiti at the moment—or maybe I got that wrong and you could clarify.
A number of us—Ms. Laverdière, Mr. LeBlanc, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I—had the opportunity to visit Haiti in January. We met with Scotiabank officials there, and they were very helpful and told us some very interesting things that Scotiabank is doing, including the cellphone payment mechanism.
I have a couple of questions for you. First, is the cellphone payment service a service that would allow Canadians who have relatives in Haiti to remit amounts to them as a way of getting some of that necessary seed capital? If I'm a Scotiabank customer and account holder here in Canada, can I go to Scotiabank and have it transfer funds to Scotiabank in Haiti and then distribute them to my relative via the cellphone transfer? If so, what is the cost of doing that?
Second, can you tell us what steps need to be taken—what conditions need to be put in place in Haiti—to enable you to offer a microfinance service there as you're doing in Peru? What preconditions were available in Peru that allowed Scotiabank to carry out that kind of business that need to be put in place in Haiti?
I think you mentioned property issues, and we've heard previously in this committee that there are some very significant problems with the land title system in Haiti. Is that part of the problem you're talking about?