Thank you very much for your question.
We totally agree that processing applications is very important.
When the one-time payment to seniors was announced in May, we introduced measures to ensure that we were able to pay the maximum possible for all seniors. In July, we issued an initial payment to all those who were already receiving old age security or the guaranteed income supplement. After that, another period followed to ensure that all applications were processed. Eligibility for the payment depended on eligibility for old age security or the guaranteed income supplement in June 2020.
We set a deadline to receive all applications, September 11, since the payment was available until the end of September. After that, we no longer had the authority to make the payments. That is why we set up a team dedicated to this, to make sure that as many applications as possible got processed. As a result, we reduced the time it took to process applications.