Sunday 9 November 2008

Commonsense Banking

After David Hodgkinson, chief operating officer of HSBC, told the Glorious Leader where to get off, as they flew along on Brown's mission to rattle the UK begging bowl at the Arabs, HSBC has released a statement calling Mr Hodgkinson's remarks “common sense”.

“If base rates come down then rates for borrowers will fall, but interest rates must reflect the cost to a bank of its own borrowing and the risk presented by a borrower. That is the foundation of responsible lending.”

HSBC, HSBC, HSBC!

2 comments:

Old BE said...

I don't know why the other banks didn't say this instead of meekly rolling over after being "summoned" to Darling Street.

hatfield girl said...

As I remarked earlier, Blue, it's some centuries since the banks have been standing up to the state on everyone's behalf. Hutton in the Observer was so bossy I'm surprised his boots still fit:

'Banks everywhere are wondering whether they should follow Barclays' behaviour and focus on repaying government funds fast, so undermining the entire global recapitalisation exercise and prioritisation of new lending. Instead, Barclays should be obliged to take government cash like the rest of the banks.'

And thereafter do as they are told presumably. If I lend money to my bank I don't expect it to lend out to government designated objectives. I want the highest return and they want a profit.

Cheek.