As we have covered on numerous occasions, the vast majority of people in the UK are likely to remain with the same banking institution for many years and in some cases decades. However, the fact is that not all bank institutions can be competitive in every area of the financial arena with some financial institutions more competitive in mortgages or loans for example. So should you consider moving bank in the future?
The Financial Ombudsman has today issued a report on the UK banking sector and the way in which potentially legitimate complaints are handled. It is believed that tens of thousands of perfectly plausible and reasonable complaints are either ignored or "kicked into the long grass" by the banking arena in the UK. The allegations are serious to the extreme because ultimately the Financial Ombudsman is in charge of overseeing the financial complaints system in the UK.
As part of the deal with the European Commission, in relation to the significant taxpayer bailout funding, it has been revealed that Lloyds bank will be ditching the TSB name and rebranding its Lloyds TSB businesses as simply Lloyds Bank. Despite the fact that TSB is one of the best known names in the UK bank industry this is the price the company has had to pay to guarantee its future.
Irish finance Minister Brian Lenihan is this week expected to put forward a plan to the European Union for a ten-year wind down of troubled financial operation Anglo-Irish bank. This is the bank which was effectively bailed out by Irish taxpayers and has so far cost the Irish population around €25 billion. However, the government believes that now is the time to effectively disband the bank and it will look to put forward a ten-year plan over the next few days.
As the recently created Banking Commission looks to hit the ground running in the UK there is great concern that the idea of forcing UK banks to split themselves up between retail and investment operations could backfire. Already the likes of HSBC have stepped forward to say that while they are happy to be based within the UK they will, like so many other banks in the country, reconsider their position if they were effectively forced into carving up their banking operations.
US giant General Electric is said to be looking at setting up a UK online banking operation which will be able to take in customer deposits. This is a company which has many different branches and many different operations throughout the world although for some reason it seems to have highlighted the UK online banking arena as something with growth prospects for the future.
Matt Ridley, the former boss of Northern Rock between 2004 and 2007, has today issued a seemingly heartfelt apology regarding the collapse of the former leading mortgage provider in the UK. Matt Ridley, together with a number of former Northern Rock executives, received severe criticism in the financial press when the bank collapsed and needed £26 billion of taxpayer's money to stop it going out of business.
News that a group of Scottish investors have ploughed £10 million into the relatively unknown Airdrie Savings Bank has caught many in the financial industry by surprise. There is now a feeling that the strained relationship between high street banks and UK consumers has created something of a gap in the market which could allow new banking institutions to grab the trust and the business of some consumers.
The Airdrie Savings Bank may well have been around for 175 years but it is a relatively small operation based in the county of Lanarkshire. However, this is a bank which may well hit the headlines in the weeks and months ahead after a group of Scottish entrepreneurs gave their backing to the operation by depositing a total of £10 million with the Bank. They will not take any shares in operation instead allowing the company to expand its lending using the deposits as backing.
In the first six months of 2010 Lloyds Bank received the equivalent of 1850 complaints each and every working day. This is by far and away the highest number of complaints for any banking brand in the UK and surprisingly only 12% of the complaints were upheld by the company. Even though the figures are potentially distorted by unauthorised overdraft payment complaints, which were subsequently overruled by the courts, there are still many issues to be resolved at Lloyds Bank.
