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Seperation of Nice / Dodgy Banking

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Started 3 years ago by Titus
Latest reply from nickb

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Titus

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Like the FP story about this today, but [boring sensible post alert] pity there is no sarcastic reference in there to the banks worst offence, which selling complete rubbish to its punters.

Selling an insurance policy (e.g., PPI) which you know perfectly well the buyer cannot possibly claim on is criminal fraud, and I am disgusted that no-one has yet gone to jail for this.

But the banks did even worse that that. They frequently put the worthless policies in place and debited the premiums from the customers' accounts without even telling the customers.

Perphaps someone more clever and less angry than me can satirise this.

Posted 3 years ago #
Midfield Diamond

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Not sure if this will ease or exacerbate your anger Titus but I wrote this many years ago about bank tellers trying to sell you stuff in the days before cashpoints and electronic banking. Feel free to use, abuse or plagiarise.

You’re just a wunch of bankers
You haven’t got a clue
What do Customers really want? A short, fast-moving queue.

No, I don’t want anything else,
I don’t wanna chat
Just cash my cheque and pay my bills – can you manage that?

No. You try to sell me stuff
Stuff you say’s the best
To quote a ‘funny’ banker’s joke – I have no interest.

I don’t wanna gold account
I don’t want advice
From a nerdy teenage monetarist with spots, bad breath and lice.

I don’t want investments
I don’t wanna pension
I don’t want a ten year plan to fund a kitchen extension.

I don’t wanna overdraft
I don’t wanna loan
And I don’t wanna talk to Bangladesh when I call you on the phone.

I don’t want insurance
For my car or house or health,
You know, I didn’t come in here for the goodness of your wealth.

I don’t want your mortgage,
Or your credit card.
Just cash my cheque and pay my bills – why is that so hard?

If you go to the hospital
Complaining you’ve got gout.
Do they first of all enquire whether you’d like your tonsils out?

“How about a heart replacement?
Heart rates are very low.”
Not when you’re trying to sell me stuff and I keep shouting, “NO!!”

Meanwhile, unlike a hospital,
There is no patient queue,
No, there’s a growing impatient one. And that’s all down to you.

We all just want a tiny queue
When we nip in after lunch
Is that so hard to comprehend, you useless banking wunch?

Posted 3 years ago #
Titus

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Excellent poem!

But [and I'm afraid I get so angry about this that I can't even manage to try to be funny] it's not that they waste my and everyone else's time trying to sell me things I don't want and don't need.

I am tight-fisted enough never to have been scammed by a bank in this way but many hard-working people with limited funds - not all of them particularly astute financially and some of them downright vulnerable - have been screwed by having knowingly been sold insurance products which are not just unneccessary or inappropriate, but which they would never be eligible able to claim on.

This is a blatant criminal fraud and in any other walk of life, the offenders would have been subject to criminal prosecution and jailed. Why has this not happened to anyone - at any level - in the banking business?

[/rant. Sorry.]

Posted 3 years ago #
Sinnick

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As a former bank technician (yes, I know it's not popular), it really isn't the person you see, it's the person you don't see. The branch staff, and indeed their managers, are working to scripts set by several obscure departments that cannot be accessed by the public. If the front-line staff see something illegal, they are obliged to do something about it.

If you don't like what's happening, and that's if you're astute enough to spot that something's not right, you'll have to go through their internal processes to get anywhere. If you've gone through all internal processes, you can then go to external authorities, unless you've given up by now. But it's really only the experts who will know the law well enough to spot anything.

I suspect there are many grey areas that need inspection - I would guess only some marginal operations have so far come to light. But I'm guessing.

Posted 3 years ago #
Sinnick

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PS, I've still not figured out why splitting banks' functionality has taken so long. It's very complex, but been talked about for many years. I also think some functions (eg, BoS printing notes) should really belong to the Bank of England, not Lloyds.

Posted 3 years ago #
Sinnick

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PPS, lovely poem btw, brought a little tear to my eye.

Posted 3 years ago #
Titus

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@Sinnick: agree completely - split the banking functions. Totally. Now.

Merchant banks: open market. Dog-eat-dog. Get it right = make a fortune. You screw up = bank goes bust, you lose job and all bonuses, shareholders lose all their investment. Government not involved, no bale-outs. Tough. It's called capitalism.

Retail banks: day-to-day money transfer and other retail products. Large capital reserves required. Very onerous rules and audits. Tight government restrictions on how you run the bank and on what kind of business you can engage in. In return, if you stay withing these restricitons, government will underwrite you.

Simples.

Posted 3 years ago #
sillybugger

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Ok, here's my ha'penny worth..."nice snuggly retail banks?...PPI - retail banks, 100% mortgages no-one could afford - retail banks, undisclosed 'bonus rates' on savings which expire - retail banks, oversold credit cards - retail banks, Northern Rock - retail bank... need I go on?

Splitting the banks into nice and nasty means all the banks in one corner and a cash box under the sofa in the other. Just saying...

Posted 3 years ago #
Sinnick

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There are 4 areas of banking that could arguably be legally separated:
- Retail (ie, you, me, people) - banking, savings, cards, insurance, mortgages, loans, pensions, individual investment, currency exchange, etc
- Business (companies, charities, sole traders, etc) - banking, insurance, loans, etc
- Investment functions
- Central functions - currency production, bonds, etc

Each would then have a natural competition and risk, without contaminating the other areas. Which is where it all went wrong.

It would only work if the whole EU had this as an objective, else you'd find a bank elsewhere that suited you.

You won't want to believe this, but in the vast majority of cases the senior guys in banks don't want to break the law. But, they're willing to make their own interpretation in the grey areas, where legal precedence hasn't been established. They want to get one up on the numerous competitors. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but usually I suspect it's not been challenged by the FSA, who are very very busy people lately. There are currently over 300 banks in the UK.

Posted 3 years ago #
nickb

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You won't want to believe this, but in the vast majority of cases the senior guys in banks don't want to break the law."

Brecht: "It's a better act to rob a bank than start one"

Posted 3 years ago #

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