An Excellent Comment on Banking
My Google Alert for Zopa found this today by Richard Heller on a web site called politics.co.uk. I particularly liked this bit, which is the author’s idea.
The banks should be compelled to offer all their customers a facility called a good neighbour account. The customer would receive a guarantee that all the funds from such an account which are available for investment by the bank would be lent exclusively to local people and local small and medium-sized businesses. They would not be lent to foreign dictators or racketeers and they would not be used to speculate in fantasy financial products which their bank cannot value or even understand.
The bank in question would not have to track its use of every single such account. But it would have to publish accounts to show that all the available aggregate funds in such accounts had at least been matched by aggregate local lending to individuals and qualifying businesses. There seems to be a market for this kind of lending, as witnessed by the recent growth of peer-to-peer financial institutions. Britain’s largest such company, Zopa, had its best-ever month in January. But no one has yet tried to bring the concept into a current account.
If demand for good neighbour accounts really took off, it could force the banks to revive the old model of Captain Mainwaring banking. The hero of Dad’s Army received money from local people and businesses in Walmington-on-Sea. He kept some of this in cash or at call. He lent the rest to other local people and businesses in Walmington-on-Sea. Captain Mainwaring, and others like him, helped Britain to finance the huge demands of the Second World War and then to finance a generation of recovery and growth. All this was achieved with the minimum of government regulation or support.
In contrast with the Mainwaring era, too many of Britain’s modern banks have been run by Private Walker, the spiv, or worse still by Private Pike, the stupid boy.
He mentions Zopa as nearest to this ideal of banking, which certainly our parents would have recognised.
Zopa of course has paid me a lot more in interest, than ever I would have got from a reputable bank.
Charlotte Rampling and Elizabeth Frink
There was a piece in the Times yesterday about Charlotte Rampling and how at 66, she is still finding good parts. The article mentions her father, Godfrey, as an Army officer, but he was more than that. He was a superb athlete, winning gold in the 1936 Olympics and died three years ago at 100.
Charlotte was born in one of the villages surrounding Haverhill in Suffolk. As was Elisabeth Frink, one of our finest sculptors.
There must be something in the water.
The Reliability of Zopa
Every morning I check the status of my Zopa and normal bank accounts.
Zopa was fine today, but my bank account was inaccessible for routine maintenance from midnight yesterday until eight this morning.
It got me thinking that I don’t think in the over four years, I have used Zopa, I’ve never not been able to access the system.
To be fair though, I have hit a couple of bugs in the past, which have resulted in say the system hanging until I have logged back in, but I certainly haven’t had a problem in the last couple of years, when my use of the system has been heaviest.
So if you worry about Zopa’s reliability, I’d say it’s probably up there with the best financial institutions.
On the related subject of fraud on Zopa, I found this article on the web. The writer makes a lot of sound points.
The Mystery Knitter Of Saltburn
This story turned up during the week, where a mystery knitter made a 50 metre Olympic-themed scarf and tied it to Saltburn pier.
The Anonymous Widower 