Incompetance at Halifax Bank of Scotland

Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBoS) has been one of the financial disasters of the last year.

It came to light during a Treasury Committee meeting that they had sacked its Head of Group Risk in 2005. The employee warned had against the costly mistakes which ultimately forced the bank to merge with Lloyds TSB. He was replaced by somebody with limited rise experience.

Posted by Sean Wilson, Independent Financial Adviser, Swindon, Wiltshire

Interest Rates Cut to 1%

The Bank of England has once again made history by dropping its Base rate to 1%.

Will it make any difference to an economy in free fall? Probably not. Again the decreases are unlikely to be passed on to borrowers or businesses

The government and the Bank of England now have stakes in most of the High Street Banks and Building Societies such as Swindon based Nationwide with a massive 60% in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Ideally this would mean forcing institutions to start lending however the government does not appear to want to use this option.


Posted by Sean Wilson, Independent Financial Adviser, Swindon, Wiltshire.