Bank Run on Santander UK?

[opticle]

Seriously made up, they are fuckin twat of a bank, with them for 15 years and I wouldn't piss on a branch if it was on fire, utter, utter cunts.

But you've been with them for 15 YEARS? Talk with your feet and leave !

 

[Mey]

Chilly you obviously have no idea how much it actually costs to run a bank, most UK current accounts are 'free' to operate as it is. Banks lose shed loads on "basic" banking users.

 

[cHodAX]

And rape it all back and then some with 20% plus interest rates on credit cards!

 

[Raven]

Chilly you obviously have no idea how much it actually costs to run a bank, most UK current accounts are 'free' to operate as it is. Banks lose shed loads on "basic" banking users.

Mostly because of all the pointless fluff like branches.

 

[cHodAX]

Mostly because of all the pointless fluff like branches.

Spot on, the backoffice stuff is always going to be expensive but still a fraction of the cost to pay for running 500+ branches, thousands of staff and pension contributions etc. A phone/internet only bank can be run with very aggressive margains and those savings could be passed on to the customer in the form of increased interest on capital plus lower interest on credit making for a highly attractive banking option. Sadly it doesn't really happen because all the current options are just offshoot operations for the major banks who keep all the savings for the purposes of bonuses and dividends.

 

[Mey]

How you going to get free cash withdrawals for your customers without having any of your own ATM's?

 

[cHodAX]

Nothing to stop you having ATM's at supermarkets and shopping centres like all the big banks do, a network of ATM's is nothing like the cost of running 500+ branches with all the implied costs.

 

[Scouse]

our economy is so heavily tied to financial services right now that we would sink faster than just about anyone else in Europe.

It's the price we should pay for being retarded enough to be wooed by the money-lenders and people who are against Islam.

Yep, Christianity and Islam correctly predicted the evils of credit being controlled by bankers 2000 years ago.

We (almost) deserve what we get for being idiots.

 

[Chilly]

How you going to get free cash withdrawals for your customers without having any of your own ATM's?

Pay natwest or whatever trade group runs LINK to process my bank. Starting a bank from scratch would be not so bad. You wouldnt have 30 year old COBOL back office systems to maintain at an infinite cost.

You could put the main office in Yorkshire or somewhere cheap, bollocks to London. You'd buy in an internet banking thing. Fuck the marketing budget. You'd have basic adverts in papers and on telly and the radio stating what you offer, no £100m campaigns from saatchi bros. So many savings to be made.

 

[Chilly]

Oh and critically, you'd never, EVER, EVER float it. Once the stock market gets hold of it you're fucked.

 

[cHodAX]

Pay natwest or whatever trade group runs LINK to process my bank. Starting a bank from scratch would be not so bad. You wouldnt have 30 year old COBOL back office systems to maintain at an infinite cost.

You could put the main office in Yorkshire or somewhere cheap, bollocks to London. You'd buy in an internet banking thing. Fuck the marketing budget. You'd have basic adverts in papers and on telly and the radio stating what you offer, no £100m campaigns from saatchi bros. So many savings to be made.

They don't still use those old COBOL systems surely? Alot of them were patched and updated for Y2K but we are 13-14 years on since those projects and COBOL systems are still in place? Fucking hell that is insane, COBOL specialists were rare as rocking horse shit in 1998 and now there will be even less of them to go around. Those blokes must be getting paid a kings ransom! Lucky bastards!

 

[rynnor]

They don't still use those old COBOL systems surely? Alot of them were patched and updated for Y2K but we are 13-14 years on since those projects and COBOL systems are still in place?

Its possible - back office stuff seldom changes much except for configuration.

If it works why change? I remember someone tried to convert the main settlement process to high level languages.

It then took over a day to settle 1 day...

 

[cHodAX]

Well there are a few reasons to change, firstly COBOL is a very clunky and unintuitive language to work with, secondly finding programmers and support staff with experience of COBOL is not easy and is mighty expensive because they supply is short and demand is higher. The settlement process you mentioned is bewildering without knowing more about it but nothing written in a more modern and optimised language should be orders of magnitude slower, it suggests that the new code just wasn't up to scratch for whatever reason. Still, I do understand that if it isn't broken then don't fix applies, the cost of supporting such old systems and code doesn't make alot of sense though. The extra spend should be used to rewrite to something more accessible and supportable which lowers the running costs dramatically in the longer term.

 

[opticle]

/Vote Open FreddysBank.

I'd work for you ^^

 

[old.user4556]

back office stuff seldom changes

Well, sort of, depends what you mean - the *big* bits don't change a lot, but peripheral systems can change, particularly when it comes to upgrade out of date / unsupported gubbins.

 

[TdC]

They don't still use those old COBOL systems surely?

hahahahaha


err, I mean...COBOL? what's that?

 

[Cadelin]

Why wouldn't they still use COBOL? With any code that involves precision mathematics its very difficult to validate that it works. Something that's out by even as little as 1 in a trillion will cause you problems.

As an example, I have pasted a bit of code I use as part of my work at CERN. Written in Fortran in 1968...

      SUBROUTINE LOREN4  (DIR,P4IN,P4OUT)
C
C CERN PROGLIB# U101    LOREN4          .VERSION KERNFOR  4.07  830624
C ORIG. 20/02/68
C
 
      DOUBLE PRECISION PCM2, ONMCM, EPBETA, PROD
 
      DOUBLE PRECISION DIR(4),P4IN(4),P4OUT(4)
C
C--                VN(A) MEANS N-VECTOR A
C--                GAMMA=ECM/MCM
C--                EPBETA=ECM*V3(PCM)*V3(BETA)
C--                V3(BETA)=V3(PCM)/ECM
C
      PCM2=DIR(1)*DIR(1)+DIR(2)*DIR(2)+DIR(3)*DIR(3)
 
 
      ONMCM=1.D0/DSQRT (DIR(4)*DIR(4)-PCM2)
 
      EPBETA=P4IN(1)*DIR(1)+P4IN(2)*DIR(2)+P4IN(3)*DIR(3)
      PROD=EPBETA*(DIR(4)*ONMCM-1.D0)/PCM2-P4IN(4)*ONMCM
      P4OUT(4)=ONMCM*(P4IN(4)*DIR(4)-EPBETA)
        DO 50 I=1,3
  50 P4OUT(I)=P4IN(I)+DIR(I)*PROD
      RETURN
      END

 

[Vasconcelos]

The banks are always reluctant to trust me, why should I trust a bank?

So banks are traditionaly used to held the upper hand over the public, and now, oh! the irony!... /grins

 

[MYstIC G]

Rightly so, our councils lost billions to the Icelandic banks and we are all still paying for it now with higher council tax rates and less services. Sadly it seems all the money is going into German banks and bonds, we all become even more heavily tied to German economic power.

I thought the government used the terrorism laws to counteract the losses.

 

[rynnor]

I thought the government used the terrorism laws to counteract the losses.

No - they locked down some icelandic assets till iceland said it would pay then iceland never paid.

 

[Hawkwind]

I like the way they settle personal debt over here (UAE).

http://www.7daysindubai.com/UAE-President-settles-debts-defaulters/story-16135642-detail/story.html

588 Million Dirhams being spent on paying off the locals debt. All to stop a possible Arab spring

On topic, any company that grows the way Santander did over the last few years is always suspicious. Especially when they buy cash rich companies just to leverage their debt against. Would not bank with them if you paid me to.

 

[Poag]

Now this isn't good.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18202671

 

[rynnor]

Now this isn't good.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18202671

The spanish banks are saddled with tons of worthless property much like in Ireland - I'm suprised they have struggled on so long tbh.

 

[Embattle]

No - they locked down some icelandic assets till iceland said it would pay then iceland never paid.

It is in the EFTA Courts at the moment.

The Spanish bank situation will only get worse, might not be a bad thing since perhaps the EU will have a meeting where they actually get something done finally.

 

[Poag]

Trouble is, Greece has rocked the boat a fair bit. But if Spain goes down the pan then Italy will follow and then France is at risk and it all gets very nasty from then on.

Also the ECB(i think?) Bailout fund isn't big enough to handle both Spain and Italy :/

 

[rynnor]

The Spanish bank situation will only get worse, might not be a bad thing since perhaps the EU will have a meeting where they actually get something done finally.

No chance - that's half the problem with the Eurozone. The markets expect swift decisive action not endless committee meetings...

 

[pez]

As an aside, the rampant bank hatred is helping to keep house prices overinflated. One of the key drivers of house price deflation when a bubble bursts is reposessions and the banks selling on the asset much closer to its 'truer' value because they have no interest in sitting on it waiting for the market to pick up. Theres not a bank in the UK right now brave enough to stick its head above the parapet and start repossessing homes from people who can't afford them.

 

[cHodAX]

As an aside, the rampant bank hatred is helping to keep house prices overinflated. One of the key drivers of house price deflation when a bubble bursts is reposessions and the banks selling on the asset much closer to its 'truer' value because they have no interest in sitting on it waiting for the market to pick up. Theres not a bank in the UK right now brave enough to stick its head above the parapet and start repossessing homes from people who can't afford them.

Hadn't really thought about that but you are right, I have friends who are in over thier heads and have been since the recession started but despite not having the money to make full payments for the best part of 5 years the bank has yet to really start pressuring them. Thing is they were given a mortgage that is something like 6-7 times thier annual income and neither of them are high earners or have been in very stable longterm jobs. They got in too deep and by rights they should be forced to sell it on if they can't make the payments, even if that lands them in some serious negative equity. The situation as it stands though is they are living in a house they cannot afford and them being there along with many others in the same boat is keeping house prices artificially higher than they should be considering the economic mess we are in.

 

[rynnor]

Theres not a bank in the UK right now brave enough to stick its head above the parapet and start repossessing homes from people who can't afford them.

I dont think its anything to do with that - the last govt brought in rules to slow down repossesions and help people stay in their homes to avoid a property crash.

 

[Ono]

You can have this knobber back if you want;

My shares closed at 25p today! TWENTY FIVE PENCE! A stamp is worth more.

LOL.

He's not done much at Lloyds apart from piss the staff off too I hear. All it's been since he joined is cost cutting.