credit unions are unsecured creditors of many distressed mortgage borrowers. utility arrears are also commonly observed. a mortgage modification which leaves borrowers with insufficient resources to deal with their arrears with credit unions and on utilities is unlikely to remain fully serviced. therefore deals with other creditors are likely to be an essential part of any effective and sustainable modification. ideally, this can be done by a standing agreement between the main creditors, and there have been moves in this direction. failing that, the pia is the fall - back route to this when it proves impossible for the main mortgage creditor to ensure ( in cooperation with the other creditors ) that, taking a holistic view of the borrower ’ s position including other indebtedness, the entire debt is sufficiently restructured. even before the emergence of arrears, there are usually warning signs for problem loans. a long understood maxim in retail banking is that early engagement with distressed borrowers is a valuable tool for improving ultimate recoverability. in particular, emerging to inability to pay instalments in full can induce a borrower to pay nothing at all, thereby risking a spiral into an unsustainable level of indebtedness. identifying pre - arrears situations and engaging with them, as with early arrears cases, can be very cost effective in arresting this spiral in the level of indebtedness. quantifying the consequences of evolving policy in this area is the subject of much research. if more investment properties are repossessed, or surrendered voluntarily to lenders, will this improve or hinder the functioning of the property market? will a release of repossessed or surrendered property into the market depress prices further, or will instead the increased number of transactions relieve uncertainty and help the market to finally find a price floor? can we improve on current estimates of the ultimate loan losses likely to be experienced from residential mortgages and will faster resolution of unsustainable mortgages increase or reduce that ultimate cost? what is the best way of operationalising better decision rules for banks enabling and impelling them to triage the loans that are unsustainable from those that can come back on track? these research questions are not simple, and ireland is far from being the only country in which there is general dissatisfaction with the way in which the crisis of mortgage arrears ( which exists in many other countries, albeit not quite as severe as here ) is being handled. indeed, if we had

raghuram rajan : tolerance and respect for economic progress convocation address by dr raghuram rajan, governor of the reserve bank of india, at the iit delhi convocation, delhi, 31 october 2015. * * * thank you very much for inviting me back to the institute to deliver the convocation address. i graduated with a degree in electrical engineering 30 years ago. i was overly anxious then about what the future held for me, because i did not realize that the institute had prepared me so well for what lay ahead. our professors – and i will not single out any to avoid a disservice to those i do not name – were dedicated professionals. they asked a lot of us, knowing that in challenging us they allowed us to learn what we were capable of. equally important, our electrical engineering class – in those days, computer science was part of electrical engineering in iit delhi – had some of the smartest people it has been my privilege to know. after working with them as colleagues, and competing with them for grades, i learned what it took to succeed in the fiercest environments ; very hard work, friendship, and boatloads of luck. those lessons have stayed with me since. iit delhi then, as i am sure it is now, was not only about studies – it was about growing up. we were, with a few notable exceptions, the proverbial school nerds who had been excluded from all school sports by the macho sports cases. with almost everyone in the same boat at iit, for the first time in our lives we got a chance to bat and bowl at the nets, instead of being posted at deep long on to retrieve the odd six by the stars. everyone did something, ranging from photography to publishing. of course, we all aspired to join dramatics, where you got to spend long hours with members of the opposite sex. unfortunately, i was no good at acting, so i had to look for self - actualization elsewhere. but there were enough places to look. student politics was vibrant, with plenty of scheming, strategizing, and back - stabbing. it was an intellectual pastime, however, without the violence and corruption that plagues student politics elsewhere in our country. you had to convince the small intelligent electorate to vote for you, and in figuring out how to get that vote, we all learnt the art of persuasion. so we grew up in the classrooms, in