Was Lord Turner right to call the UK banks socially useless?
Amid signs that the UK property sector is starting to pick up, yet liquidity is still very hard to come by in the mortgage sector, Lord Turner's comments describing UK banks as being "socially useless" have grabbed headlines all around the world. As we have covered in some of our earlier posts, this goes way beyond the brief of Lord Turner as chairman of the FSA although his comments have attracted growing support over the last 24 hours.
There is no doubt that the UK banking sector dominates the UK economy and ultimately dominates the lives of many in the UK. As consumer struggle to refinance their debts, corporate entities struggle to trade their way through the ongoing recession and the UK banks appear determined to retain what liquidity they have, at least for the time being, there is a feeling that UK banks are not "doing their bit".
When you consider that billions upon billions of pounds of UK taxpayers money has been poured into the system with very little return as of yet, perhaps now is the time the UK banks to step up to the mark?
Do you really believe that UK banks are socially useless?
Share this..
Related stories
Jaguar Land Rover secures further funding
In what is becoming an embarrassing situation for the UK government, which has over £2.5 billion to hand to help the UK car industry, Tata Motors (the parent company of Jaguar Land Rover) has today announced a £175 million loan from the State bank of India. The company now has around £500 million in additional finance available from a number of banks and financial institutions around the world....
Read MoreWorst of credit crunch 'still to come', CFOs say
The worst of the credit crunch has yet to be experienced, business bosses have suggested.Deloitte recently polled 83 chief financial officers (CFOs) from top-350 companies in the UK - and found that 66 per cent disagreed with US treasury secretary Henry Paulson's recent statement that the most pronounced effects of the crisis had already been passed.In addition, nine in ten of the CFOs said that t...
Read MoreBank 8-1 in favour of rate hold
The Bank of England voted 8-1 in favour of maintaining interest rates at 5.25 per cent earlier this month, meeting minutes have revealed.Monetary policy committee (MPC) member David Blanchflower was the sole dissenter, unexpectedly advocating a reduction in base rates by a quarter of a per cent.Today's minutes revealed that despite latest consumer price index (CPI) inflation figures standing at 2....
Read MoreEU regulations to hit hedge funds
A raft of EU regulations which are set to become law could lead to compliance costs of around £1.2 billion for hedge funds in the first year. It is thought this could fall to around £1 billion the year for the industry in every subsequent year as the regulator gets tough with hedge funds, which many believe were one of the elements behind the collapse in the worldwide money markets.
Read More
UK carmakers beg for Treasury bailout
Car manufacturers in UK have today written to the Chancellor demanding a multibillion pound bailout for an industry which is literally growing sicker on a daily basis. There has been a massive drop in demand for both new and second-hand cars as the recession and the ever-increasing burden of road tax and green taxes on vehicles in the UK begins to hit home. The industry has never experienced a wor...
Read More