Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Interest Rates - Overdrafts

Mail: Banks hike overdraft rates to highest levels in a decade

"Banks are turning the screw on struggling customers by pushing up current account overdraft rates to their highest level in a decade. The average figure imposed on those who find themselves in the red is a staggering 14.22 per cent. The figure is some 28 times higher than the Bank of England base rate of 0.5 per cent and so is delivering an all-time record profit margin for the banks".

Posted by alan @ 07:43 PM (824 views) Add Comment

7 Comments

1. tenyearstogetmymoneyback said...

I wonder what Vince Cable will have to say about this.
In fact I wonder what Vince (spotted the house price bubble and potential economic meltdown back in 2003)
will have to say on a lot of things.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 07:48PM Report Comment
 

2. mr g said...

@TYTGMMB

Cable's reputation is built entirely on the question he asked Gordon Brown in November 2003:

"Is not the brutal truth that ... the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?" Brown replied, "As the Bank of England said yesterday, consumer spending is returning to trend. The Governor said: 'there is no indication that the scale of debt problems have ... risen markedly in the last five years.' He also said that the fraction of household income used up in debt service is lower than it was then."

I would have thought that many contributors to HPC would have been capable of the same prescience as Vince.

The remainder of his career has been spent in academia and politics apart from 1966 to 1968 when he was a Treasury Finance Officer to the Kenyan Government and was Chief Economist for Shell from 1995 to 1997.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 08:01PM Report Comment
 

3. tenyearstogetmymoneyback said...

mr g. I was aware of all that.

"I would have thought that many contributors to HPC would have been capable of the same prescience as Vince."

The difference is that he was able to stand up in Parliament and say it, while people here have been put in the same
category as "The end of the world is Nigh" brigade.

As I have said here before the BBC did an excellent program "Mortgage Madness" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3478635.stm
back in 2004 exposing the Self Cert mortgage scams being encouraged by Halifax. However, I get the impression that no one in
Westminster saw it

In one of the pre election interviews someone (I think it was George Osborne) who said that no one
(with the exception of Vince Cable) saw the collapse of the Banks coming

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 08:55PM Report Comment
 

4. mr g said...

@TYTGMMB

I wasn't criticising your original comments in the slightest and agree with you that no one at Westminster appeared to see the problems being built up let alone pursue the issue after VC's question to Brown.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 09:31PM Report Comment
 

5. alan_540 said...

Seeing as most of the banks are basically state owned, we can applaud ourselves that we're doing our bit to reduce the governments spending deficit.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 10:06PM Report Comment
 

6. Crunchy said...

Alex Jones knew and spoke about the engineered boom and bust (bankers takeover) many years before it happened.

He had seen the plan. Yet another victory for the so called conspiraloons.

Keep them coming Alex! Is the recent bail out going to the greek people. Of course not. D'oh!

Collectivism= Worldwide robbery.

Thursday, May 13, 2010 12:57AM Report Comment
 

7. Positivo said...

@alan

That would be after the banks dish out their massive bonuses

Thursday, May 13, 2010 09:56AM Report Comment
 

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