Northern Rock...the mess continues

Nationalised bank Northern Rock announced losses of half year losses of £725 000 000. 22 000 of its mortgage customers are in arrears and 40% of their customers suffer form negative equity.

This is the consequence of Northern Rock's expnasion programme which involved lending to high risk groups of borrowers with 100%+ mortgages.

Not surprsingly Alistair Darling said he was in "no hurry" to try & find a buyer for the ailing bank.

Posted by Sean Wilson, APFS, Independent Financial Advisers (IFA), Swindon, Wiltshire.

Northern Rock re-emerge

For the first time in many months, I have received marketing material for Northern Rock mortgages.

They are the most financially secure company to buy a mortgage or a savings product from at the moment because of government backing.

How do the mortgages compare?

The rates are fine but they still maintain a traditional feature of Northern Rock products...high arrangement fees.

Northern Rock Nationalised

After 5 months, the government has finally taken action over Northern Rock. It will be nationalised after £51 billion has already committed to the ailing bank in loans & guarantees to savers.

Nationalisation become inevitable after the one potential bidder after another was rejected.

When the crisis arose, there were a number of alternatives

1 Let the bank go bust.

2 Let a high street bank like Lloyds TSB take over the bank, who were initially interested.

Probably the worst aspect of the crisis was the Chancellor being indecisive for so long & seemingly hoping the problem would go away, the delays have severely damaged the Northern Rock brand.

There is one glimmer of hope, the man put in charge Ron Sandler has a good record of previously running Lloyds & Nat West.