Having read over the weekend of yet another breaking
banking scandal is it not about time these disgraceful fat-cats were seriously
taken to task? As a company turnaround consultant I come into contact with the
shameful banking practices on a frequent basis. This latest ‘revelation’
headlining the newspapers is not news to those of us in the insolvency
business as there have been suspicions for years around the insolvency
practices and banks. A lot has to do with the banking culture itself which has
become more and more arrogant and remote from its original purpose – to lend
and provide services to its customers.
Successive governments have had far too close a relationship
with the banking heads. The most notoriously bad banking and political relationship
was of course between Fred Goodwin, ex RBS boss and Gordon Brown, who has arguably been deemed "the worst chancellor ever".
Gordon Brown appointed Goodwin of all people to advise on
the regulatory aspects of banking and sale practices and duly gave good old
Fred a knighthood in gratitude. The appointment of Goodwin advising Gordon on
banking regulation was not so much the blind leading the blind, as the
equivalent of King Herod being asked to advise Mothercare on the latest range
of comforters. It should not, therefore, come as any surprise that on top of the
rate swap mis-selling debacle we now have this latest, equally shameful list of accusations
against RBS of stealing property at an undervalue.
We come into contact with situations like this through our line of work and one example could be a recent case where a director was sold ‘insurance’ to cover his company against rising interest rates
until, you guessed it, the interest rates fell and his cash-flow was destroyed.
This was an interest rate swap product and even though he complained, he got
nowhere with the bank and eventually the company went into default
with his mortgage payments – the actual mortgage he had ‘insured’ and trying to
protect.
The director had secured a RICS valuation for over £2m and yet, just
one year later when the company, now starved of cash due to the horrendous
interest rate payments he was paying to the bank, was forced into company liquidation.
The bank appointed liquidators then sold the property off at a value of
£800,000 knowing that my client had personal guarantees in place further
protecting the bank. He not only lost his business but also his wife, having
long suffered the pressures of supporting a stressed husband, she had finally
had enough. He also lost his children and immediate access to those that
made his life worthwhile. All this because greedy
individuals looked after their own interests first and believed they had the
right to do what they could with no thought that they may be doing wrong. But
these ‘scams’ do not only involve bankers, they drag in the associated large
insolvency practitioners who sit on the banking ‘panels’ as they may have too
cosy a relationship with the banks. This may be another area for investigation
by Vince Cable who appears to me to be one of the few politicians with any
sense of integrity.
Of course the newspapers rightly focus on the lost
businesses and the hardship that this causes, but what it also does is knock
our confidence in the established banks and the establishment itself to an
extent. It is hardly surprising why banks are so despised; try getting a
commercial loan, or worse a mortgage and the banks get tighten-up. Any
mortgage applicant is treated like a criminal as they have the audacity to dare
borrow money to improve their lot.
Of course this would be funny if there wasn’t a more serious
side to it and the serious side is the human fall-out of the pressure that these
scandalous banking practices bring about. The fact that the Co Op Bank, set up to
serve its members has been brought to its knees with £1.5billion gap means
pensions will be underfunded and genuine investors will lose money.
The banks have a lot to answer for and there does not seem
to be any end to these banking scandals that have hit every man woman and child
in this country and arguably the western world. The bigger question is what do
we do to put this right?
Written by: Mike Smith