£500m bonuses to RBS bankers but 1m customers penalised

Totally agree with the previous comments – well done – I have personally lost thousands of £’s when the government plunged Lloyds into the pit by forcing them into this ill-conceived “deal” – shares purchased @ £3-4 now worth pennies!!! Bonuses and kick-backs in every direction except the shareholders and pensioners AGAIN!! Used to get a nice little dividend from my Lloyds shares – now – nothing!!!

Not for the first time, and, no doubt we will visit this situation again and again. But, under the banner of ‘fair’…. and just by ‘one’ bank? Immediately with just cause the cry goes out as ‘FOUL’ and a list of well placed epithets swiftly follow, could we though examine why the banks [in this case RBS] are doing this, at least we can say they have scored a spectacular ‘own goal’ in the process, we know it cannot make an instant change as they so readily inflict upon everyone else, yet, we can change it.

We know change is in effect – Vickers and so on, so Ring – Fencing will occur. Banks didn’t want it although they agree some form of internal change would be required. After all how do you hide the self-inflicted c**k-up created? The Basel agreements I, II, and III in our mind prove that. Therein they must re-examine their profit engendering efforts from all avenues, including that of the humble bank account. Not those specifically already providing income i.e. overdrafts, packages etc.. but a root and branch revamp on what they want as a bank account that makes money, regardless of any previous ethics/history/fairness of what ‘simple’ banking is all about. They’ve brought the dealers ethos to the front line. A commission for a sale and one for purchase, but is this the investment side of banking taking over, you see no Chinese-wall here.

Retail banking [as such] has had no internal protection – no ring fencing, what we as customers pay in can/could be used at any time to support other activities of a bank albeit some restrictions applied, but in essence this what occurs, has occurred, and in their reasoned minds will continue.

This soon to be change though has also provided the perfect smokescreen of confusion readily promoted by the banks and their trade association. We, you’ve seen it…Dear Prime Minister…Mr Chancellor..We can’t do this…ohhh look how much…and we’ll lose so many jobs!! Meanwhile, at the coalface, and I suspect scripted, we [they] will effect change now by doing this and that..all in the name of our responsibilities. All along, night and day our silent funds continue to be used by them, producing profits for the well being of the bank/s. So the trade-off was, and has been, we will give banks our money for safe keeping knowing full well they can use it when we can’t but we will be able to get it out when and where we like, in full. No Excuses. No Charges.

The distaste continues for the onlooker and account holders. And here comes the own goal… when RBS announced the restrictions on usage of ATM’s, it advertised account holders would be able to use the Post Office (somewhat a sugar coated pill) failing to say it applied to Debit Card holders only…..and closed their Basic Bank Account to new customers. AND as aside to this, they also want to re-negotiate payment for ATM usage by their Not-For-Profit-Organisation’s customers, ‘customer card holders’ in Scotland.

Invariably the elderly, and vulnerable suffer by these draconian impositions, something out of Dickens, but if this footprint is set in stone by the bigger and biggest in banks the rest will surely follow. Banking is, in the UK, one of do as I say not as we do with some reluctant justification thrown in for good measure. When you add the ending of traditional cheques in favour of Cash Cards and online banking, the closure of rural branches – both banks and Post Offices, local buses increased fares, transport costs everywhere……you get the picture, the word ‘fair’ pales.

No…FAIR it is not. NEVER. Moreover, is it reasonable? Better still, is it un-reasonable? Nothing is ever fair, antics like gross salaries in the face of meltdown elsewhere borders on criminality to right-minded thinking people. Banks, well we are going to be stuck with them. Reform, long time coming and we will be stuck with that unless we modify that reform to be constructive for everyone. One simple assertion, all of us needs some form of banking facility. RBS have no wish to provide it, but they have done and should return to doing so, end of. Wherein they [RBS] and others can’t see the wood before the trees, perhapsnthey should understand this, you cannot de-construct the very origins and principles of implied trust and banking in one fell swathe. Changes will effectively be underscored by legislation.

Fundamental change to protect the vulnerable indeed, all sectors of society, begins by making it mandatory to have Basic Bank accounts WITH Cash Card access FREE everywhere. By all means we can have other types of accounts, that is competition and based upon individual circumstances, but since banks refuse en-mass to put the foundations in place we must rescue the situation ourselves. Would you all like to read http://thenomoreexcuses.blogspot.com It is totally apolitical. It also has the E-petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15120 to get the debate, to get this current Government to enact change.

You do not expect bankers to agree, do you? Well RBS? Fair….? No More Excuses!

…and I might add where do all these bonuses get us? Today RBS worth (as valued by the market) virtually approx. 97% down from early 2006!

nfh,

I cannot argue against the fact that tax revenues are paid and most companies mitigate their tax position. They would be daft not to do so.

However this is a red herring. Turning the discussion around to what you say would be the conclusion (if traders got no bonuses), I assume you would argue that those companies that do not pay excessive bonuses ( and there are plenty of them out there) will have lost all their best staff abroad, those multi nationals are no longer based here and we now get no benefit via the tax system. Not True, plenty of companies based here ( and who actually earn their money abroad) benefit the UK exchequer. Perhaps we would like more. I wonder why they stay here when you claim the banks would not?

These other companies are hardly ever underwritten by the UK tax payer in the way banks have been. Banks are currently in a very privileged position and they abuse it!

Perhaps we should agree to differ on those points, – but Posters have put forward several against the bonus culture and there has been little posted to negate those other arguments.

Perhaps there should be no bonuses until the banks can repay the ‘little old lady’ who has lost so much of her pension, invested by the ‘bonus receiving individuals’ into other financial institutions, which are losing most of value and being rewarded handsomely whilst ‘the lady’ sits around her 1 bar electric fire shivering this winter wondering why her winter fuel payment has been cut. Oh yes given to prop up the banks and their bonuses……..

“God loves the poor –
that’s why He made so many of them.”

(J.K. Galbraith)

Banks will NEVER change until the government actually does something quickly to stop this obscene practice of giving themseves huge bonuses whilst the rest of us suffer high inflation, low interest on savings, difficulty in obtaining loans etc etc etc
Stop pontificating Cameron and get on with it!!!

I used to have a Girobank account. I started it nearly 40 years ago when they were offering free in credit accounts as opposed to the Nat West which I was with needing £100 credit balance to not pay charges.
I needed about £100 pounds (which was quite a lot of money in those days, my mortgage was £44) so I changed, but the Nat West made things as difficult as possible for me and suggested I should take out a loan at about 12% (it was when interest rates were a lot higher).
The manager seemed completely unable to see my point of view. He just could not understand my reasoning that it did not make sense for me to pay him interest to borrow my own money!

Girobank worked very well for me, a current account which paid no interest and a linked savings account which, although not the best interest was fair and you could switch from on account to the other on a phone call so you could write a cheque and ring up to transfer the funds to cover it.
I had my salary paid into the savings account and about twice a month when I paid the bills I would tot up the cheques and transfer the necessary, the balance would be saved earning interest without ending up being left in a savings account which may without warning stop paying interest.

I fear this was too easy for the ordinary population who could cope with the system and was taking too much of the current account money out of the commercial banks so they had to get it sold off and screwed up.

I have dumped my Santander account ( which it ended up as ) in favour of an RBS one because at least I can get it to do what I want it to, but I agree with the sentiments expressed against the bonuses and feel that as RBS is now owned by the government they should reorganise it on the lines of the old Girobank.

I wonder if the banks and other executives of companies paying themselves outrageously high bonuses pay the same level to their frontline staff? I doubt it as the criteria applied to the lower echelons means if they are lucky they might get a few hundred.If a rule was applied that bonuses were paid at the same level percentage wise to ALL staff would they be so high.Its not that difficult to up your prices and/ or shed staff or just churn money around which seems to be all some of these companies do.Where are the really skilled and innovative directors everyone keeps referring to?