So Santander, already owners of Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, come in to help out the Government by taking over the profitable parts of Bradford and Bingley ie the braches, retail banking and savings. Leaving us the taxpayer with more nationalised mortages and loans in the Brown Building Society, aka Northern Rock poc (publically owned company) for it does appear increasingly that the governemnt may soon be owning a huge proportion of the nation's mortgages.
Sr Bradford: Hola, Senor Bingley.
Sr Bingley: Hola, Senor Bradford. Que t' al?
Sr Bradford: All the better for consolidating our bad debts with Senor Brown and the Northern Rock UK Ltd.
Sr Brown: Senors Bradford and Bingley I will be prudent in looking after the mortgages and will bring sunshine to your branches with a little Spanish flair.
Sr Bingley: Well that's better than some Scottish dross then.
The deal is actually a lot better for the taxpayer than first appears - Robert Peston explains at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/09/city_pays_for_bradford_bingley.html .
ReplyDeleteThe B & B was in such a bad state the deposit scheme underwritten by the bank industry kicked in. This actually looks like pretty shrewed politics - and difficult for OSborne and the like to criticise