Commercial property values are rising again and no-one should be more pleased than the owners of Britain’s banks – ie, us. Balance sheet write-offs could soon be replaced by write-backs.
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The supreme court’s ruling on bank charges is a rare piece of good news for the banking sector and a rare piece of common sense imposed on regulators. It is not the Office of Fair Trading’s role to set prices.
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Nevermind that the Bank of England kept secret for a year its massive loan to HBoS and RBS (LON:RBS), why on earth did it choose to break its silence on the day Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) announces its record rights issue?
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How do you force banks to lend when their best customers don’t want to borrow? Make them lend to their worst customers?
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It’s a funny old world where Tesco (LON:TSCO) is the answer to a monopolies problem.
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The government’s promise of three new banks looks attractive for an industry that has retreated to a Big Four offering little competition. But one of the three newcomers isn’t new and the other two are tiddlers.
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It’s taken a long time to get a policy statement from shadow chancellor George Osborne, but now it has come, his call for curbs on bankers’ bonuses risks generating sympathy for the villains.
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If banks shouldn’t be “too big to fail” how small must they be before we allow them to collapse? It’s the question the Bank of England’s governor must answer.
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“Is it time for a new windfall tax on banks?” asked this blog back in the summer. It seems so. The Westminster press briefing is that the chancellor is considering a banks tax in his pre-budget statement.
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British Leyland proved the benefit of not throwing away old brands: each time its image became too tarnished it reverted to one of its old names.
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