Who will fund the cost of change in UK banking sector?
The last 48 hours has seen a flurry of announcements from the UK government and UK regulators regarding the future structure of the UK banking system. Not only is the potential for UK banks to broken up and sold on, to increase competition in the market place, but indeed the European Commission is looking to force UK banks to withdraw from certain areas of the market due to the fact they receive state funding.
On top of this we have Halifax introducing a new system that will be rolled out to all customers which will see the end of "free banking" with charges for every service and every aspect of banking you can think of. Ultimately, while the UK government and UK regulators have become involved in many ways to protect the UK consumer, it is the UK consumer who will be asked to foot the bill.
Not only will consumers pay the price with regard to their personal banking but businesses will also encounter higher charges which will at some point need to be passed on to the end customer. All in all, despite the fact that UK taxpayers have bailed out the banking sector to the tune of tens of billions of pounds it is the UK consumer who will ultimately pay the price!
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