The Mess That Is RBS
Just reading this article from the Guardian shows the mess the wunch of bankers at RBS got themselves into. Here’s an extract.
Clear thinking and firm principles are Royal Bank of Scotland’s best defence as it tries to negotiate its Libor fine, which could end in UK taxpayers, in effect, dispatching £400m to American taxpayers. But, in the case of Hourican’s exit, it’s hard to know what point RBS is trying to make. On the one hand Hourican’s head (we are led to believe) will be offered up in acknowledgement of the seriousness of the Libor penalty. On the other hand RBS is likely to undermine the force of this resignation by saying that Hourican would have departed anyway because his investment banking unit is to be split in two with the new heads of each section – markets and international – reporting directly to the chief executive, Stephen Hester. Since there’s no suggestion that Hourican knew about attempted Libor manipulation in the ranks, he will keep the bonuses he earned in past years.
The Guardian says it’s a muddle and if everybody in these Isles have to give a few quid to American taxpayers, how about we all sue Prudence, who to protect his Scottish majority, didn’t do the humane thing with RBS and liquidate it. I feel slightly sorry for Mr. Hourican, as I suspect, he’ll suffer badly at the hands of the tabloids, although it would appear he’s done nothing wrong.
My Dual Fuel Bill
I seem to pay £154 a month for this.
I wouldn’t know if that is high or low, except that it’s certainly a lot less than I used to pay in the two previous houses.
An Overview Of Peer-To-Peer Lending
I just found this excellent article about peer-to-peer lending in the Northern Echo.
On Line Loan Applications
Someone just tried to put a link to an on-line payday loan company in this post on my blog. As you can see the post is about wind power, so why would someone interested in wind power and Ireland, click away from the page to some dubious on-line loan provider?
I deleted the comment, as I always do with those that aren’t constructive to the blog.
But it got me thinking!
So I typed.
online loan application
Into Google to see what turned up.
The first page had about twenty links, of which only half were for legitimate sources in my view. The rest were in my view the on-line providers, that I find dubious.
I’ve also looked at my spam and note, there are quite a few payday loan companies trying to advertise using my site, but they have been stopped by the spam filter in WordPress.
Is It The Time To Put RBS Down?
RBS looks like it will be facing large fines from both the UK and US authorities according to this report on the BBC web site. The report starts with this paragraph.
Any fines by US authorities on Royal Bank of Scotland over the Libor scandal should be met by bankers not taxpayers, Chancellor George Osborne has insisted.
But even if it finds this the money to pay the fine from bankers bonuses, the saga of this worthless company just goes on. They still don’t seem to have managed to get rid of the 316 branches, that they tried to offload to Santander.
If the bank were to be put into administration, customers would do the thing, that they should be doing now and that is move their accounts to another bank.
I do wonder how many people still bank with RBS or its subsidiaries?
At the moment the bank is just a zombie, whose only use for most of us is to get cash out of their cash machines.
Would anybody except the employees miss it, if it was put down? I doubt it. But I suspect most of the good employees have already left the bank.
Fraudsters Are Targeting Wonga Customers
I have never used Wonga and I never will, but I received this e-mail supposedly from them this morning.
Customer Satisfaction Survey 2013
At Wonga.com, we sincerely value your opinions.
As part of our continuous improvement process, we’re conducting a survey to benchmark the opinions of our customers.We will use the resulting information to better serve the needs of our customers.
We kindly ask you to take part in our quick and easy 3 questions customer survey. In return, we won’t charge you ANY INTEREST on your next loan application!
Here is how you proceed:
• Download your personal survey attached to this email.
• Select the desired answers on your survey.
• Log in to your Wonga.com account to validate your survey.
We thank you in advance for your time and effort in making Wonga the best payday lender in the United Kingdom.Sincerely,
Wonga.com Customer Service
Message ID:
I wasn’t sure if it was phishing spam or something from the company, which has used one of my e-mail addresses.
So I did what you should always do with this type of message and used Google to search for “Wonga 2013 2013 customer satisfaction survey”
I found this page. So it’s a phish and of course fraudulent!
In some ways it’s rather ironic, that a rather dodgy company in my view, is being used as a hook by criminals to get mugs for their frauds.
What No Zopa!
Or any other peer-to-peer lending site for that matter, are mentioned in the best fifty web sites to save money in The Times.
After all, both lenders and borrowers get a better deal here.
Or perhaps, I’m reading the figures upside down.
Am I Mean To Myself In Small Ways?
My left humerus hasn’t been in the best of sorts the last couple of weeks. But it’s always been like that in the cold, ever since the school bully broke it. After Southgate I took the train up to Oakwood station and could see the park, through which I used to walk every day to get physiotherapy on my arm, in the three months or so after it mended.
I always used to walk, rather than take the two buses, as it was in some ways easier. And of course, I got to keep the bus fare! What I used to spend it on, I can’t remember! But it was probably bits for my Meccano.
In some thmgs, I waste money, but at other times, I’m quite the opposite. It must be my careful Jewish and Huguenot genes!
Peer-to-Peer Lending In Estonia
My Zopa alert found this article from a website called European Voice.
It gives this view on Estonian banking.
Banking is the economy’s biggest weakness. It offers stingy, fee-ridden savings products and over-priced loans with nasty hidden costs. Intermediaries gain colossal profits, especially when they are greedy and reckless. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, the taxpayer picks up the bill. Apart from that, it works fine.
It then goes on to show how things are changing through a company called Isepankur.
The writer has in fact invested some of his savings, by loaning to Estonian borrowers. This is his experience so far.
My net average return (like most Isepankur lenders) is about 17%. I have so far lent €1,570 to about 50 borrowers, in amounts ranging from €5 to €25. I have received €60 back in repaid capital and €24 in interest. I also got €0.06 in ‘penalties’ (my share in a small fine levied on a borrower called ‘Lillekas’ who paid a few days late).
I don’t think it will be many years, before the peer-to-peer lenders are available in many countries.
Who’d be a retail banker?
Credit Card Transactions
Yesterday, I used my credit cards, twice. I used my Visa card to buy a present in Selfridges and also bought my supper in Marks and Spencer using my John Lewis Partnership card.
Checking my on-line accounts this morning, neither of the transactions have been added. Why not?
In these days of instance pin checking and information, surely the information, should be in my statement, immediately I’ve used the card!
After all, it would be a big security check, for users.
On the other hand, where your partner has a card on your account, it could be major source of friction in a relationship.
The Anonymous Widower 