Mark Wadsworth: !!!!!!

Friday, 10 February 2012

!!!!!!

12 comments:

Old BE said...: That's a lower rate than I get on my personal overdraft facility, although my recent "review" letter did not spell it out in that way!; 10 February 2012 at 13:28
Steven_L said...: Maybe they are trying to discourage overdrafts - i.e. deleverage, increase capital ratios etc?

Just a shame they can't encourage saving with an at least the rate of inflation interest rate isn't it?; 10 February 2012 at 13:47
Onus Probandy said...: Erm... that sounds pretty normal for an overdraft rate.

My personal overdraft rate is in the teens (I forget exactly).; 10 February 2012 at 13:55
Deniro said...: Can you feel those waves of you Quantatative Easing washing over you.; 10 February 2012 at 14:00
Lola said...: The rate was base plus 6% last year...; 10 February 2012 at 14:02
chefdave said...: Cheeky feckers. Is it pitchfork time yet?; 10 February 2012 at 15:20
Anonymous said...: They have a renewal fee? Is that a business or personal account?; 10 February 2012 at 15:36
Anonymous said...: @Lola,

Blame Basel III and European Financial stability initiative that adds huge cost to bank capital.

ECB also takes a hair cut of 40% or so on 1 year small business loan and BoE won't even accept that as a collateral.

QE is honey for the big boys and big only.

EBM; 10 February 2012 at 17:00
Bayard said...: I got a letter like that from HSBC, excpet it said that they had reviewed my overdraft facility and were taking it away from me. (I hadn't been overdrawn for some time on that account.) They didn't have the cheek to charge me for it though. The message I got was that if you didn't give them an excuse to charge extortionate fees and a punitive interest rate by actually using your overdraft facility, then they weren't interested in you having one. Now, foolishly, I had thought that an overdraft facility was something you had in case you needed a lot of money in a hurry, not an invitation to live permanently in debt. I live and learn.; 10 February 2012 at 17:28
Physiocrat said...: I have a better idea on how to raise public revenue. Abolish all of them as all taxation is robbery. But as the money has to be collected someohow you take a million people at random and send them each a bill for the same amount. If they don't pay, they can be put in prison till they do.

How to select the million? You could do it using a similar system to ERNIE for Premium Bonds. Or the police could just be asked to arrest the specfied number of people by picking them up off the streets. The NKVD used that system - it worked quite well and infrastructure got built. It's fair, isn't it?; 10 February 2012 at 21:58
Derek said...: Actually you could just use ERNIE. That way it would also be voluntary. Buy a Premium bond and take the chance of winning a fortune or losing a fortune! Then it would be fair.; 10 February 2012 at 23:59
Anonymous said...: Whilst I don't bank with HSBC I can add that the experience I had with my bank somewhat matches that of Bayard.

I was asssigned an "agreed overdraft facility limit" which, thankfully, I never had to call upon, but, at a time when my income shall we say dipped for a while, and my bank noticed that with all the regular calls on what money I was getting in I might just have to call upon that oh so helpful facility at long last, they were quite swift in writing to me to explain that they had reviewed the terms of my account and taken the decision to reduce the pre-agreed limit, which had the one punitive interest rate, quite severely, and also very kindly pointed out that should I breach the now reduced pre agreed limit, well the interest charges and the fee charged for breaching it were doubly punitive. By being very very careful I managed to avoid that potential situation. And when my personal finances improved, and there was once again a higher amount of dosh arriving regularly into my account every month, well surprise, surprise, I got a very nice letter explaining how that pre-agreed limit had been reviewed, again, and increased, almost putting it back to where it had been before.

Banks, doncha just love 'em - always ready to offer out a helping hand, except of course when you might most need it, because then when you are at your weakest they look to really bleed you dry ...; 11 February 2012 at 01:56

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