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[MSE Martin]

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Chancellor (in lift) says customers can choose their bank" Blog.

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[ewanm]

Just to be a pedant, but Williams & Glynn were part of RBS, not NatWest.

[jamesd]

In these machinations customers are just pawns in the game being sold off and it's to be expected that offers will be made that will tend to push them into whichever piece is desired by those arranging the split. Otherwise the newly split Williams & Glynn ends up with no customers and another split is needed because the first one achieved nothing.

Or consider a Northern Rock customer whose loan is classed as bad. The chance of them being able to freely elect to be part of the good bank rather than the bad bank seems very low.

[Bumblin]

Early days - but concerning. I have an offset mortgage from C&G (although all their stuff says mortgages are from LLoyds TSB and administered by C&G) and my current account offsetting the mortgage is LLoyds TSB. The press release yesterday said 'certain' C&G mortgages would be sold - which is obviosuly not helpful.

I have a great rate (0.9% above base) and do not want to lose it or the offset!

I also have accounts with Intelligent Finance and RBS in Manchester...

[Ceerad]

I remember choice - I have accounts with Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Cater Allen - now they are all owned by Santander. Hey, if the new 'bits' of this bank break up look good enough then maybe Santander can buy my Intelligent Finance account too! All neat and tidy.

[Offpiste]

Utter political nonsense. It sounds to me like they are making the rules up as they are going along... again.

In any event, it's a chicken-and-egg situation:

Firstly, how can a customer make an informed choice as to which part of the bank to stay with before knowing who the ultimate parent company (buyer) of the part to be sold off will be?

Secondly, how can a buyer value the the part to be sold off unless they know which customers come with it? The bulk of the assets and liabilities of the bank are the borrowers and savers - without them the buyer is simply buying a lot of empy branches. Indeed, it's worse than that: the branches come with a load of staff who will need to be paid, there will be business rates to be paid and, best of all, rent to be paid to the landlord who was sold the freehold by the bank itself on a sell-and-leaseback arrangement which helped artificially boost the bank's profits prior to its recent collapse...

No buyer, of course, will accept any of this so the borrowers (assets) and savers (liabilities) will necessarily have to be shuffled about to make an attractive package for a potential buyer. It will be interesting to see how they dress this up as being in the customers best interest.

[simoncm]

I have a LloydsTSB account, which I use in Scotland and a mortgage with Cheltenham & Gloucester for a property in Scotland. I fear that with the proposed bank sell off my situaton will become suddenly complex when changing my mortgage in the future without the tie in between the two groups!

How come the chancellor is now forcing the banks to divest their interests in the different groups when Gordon Brown & him were so keen for them to join together last year, ratified with the competition agency!

[flightlevels]

The Chancellor's hand is being forced by the useless European regulators who have the ultimate say on how we arrange our affairs.

[pwharley]

Just want to say "Well done" to Martin for grabbing the opportunity to question Alistair Darling!

[holmework]

I'm generally very anti-Europe, but here I think they have something. We need to break up banks (in UK and worldwide) because there is too little competition, and it may help prevent the lemming-like suicide that they all committed over 'donations' (not loans) to people who could never repay.
No individual country wants to act first because it will put their own banks at a disadvantage. So we need a worldwide body to act. Unfortunately we don't have that, so Europe will have to do.

In a 'fair' world the banks that messed up would be gently run down, allowing new entrants, well-run banks, or foreign banks to take their market share. Lord knows this is what we would force developing countries to do! But the cost in terms of jobs, prestige, and shareholder-value would be too great, so we have to resuscitate them. But to avoid embarrassment we have to make some changes.

[andyinlondon]

But untill it actually happens i would not bank (excuse the pun) on anything the chancellor said,
After all he didn't run it by Gordon first and it was said only in front of his team so no witnesses.
And yes i do not trust our politicians especially our government as far as i could spit them.

[Mary_Hartnell]

As a former account holder in Halifax for both mortgage and savings account, I have ended up with a pathetically reduced value of shares in Lloyds. Thank you Lloyds shareholders for "rescuing" my "toxic" HBoS shares.

Any one got a link to what the latest "rights-issue" means in terms of probably throwing good money after bad?

[cazziem]

I have been a customer of TSB for the last 35 years since I was a child. I have ALWAYS been treated with respect and the staff have a brilliant attitude. In fact I had a card cloned a couple of years ago and had over £1,500 taken from my account within 48 hours. I was really impressed with the attitude of TSB and the fact that my money was back in my account in less than 24 hours.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Lloyds! I have spoken to several people over the years who were not impressed with Lloyds and I too do not feel they are very fair, or at least they weren't.

Many years ago, my ex-husband HAD to have an account with Lloyds to pay his salary into; as he worked away from home I used to draw the money out for bills etc each week. One particular week I was issued with a 'stangely' coloured £20, which I was told within the following 10 minutes was a forgery when I attempted to pay the monthly mortgage in a different bank next door. I returned to Lloyds, went to Customer Services, the £20 was kept by the bank and I ended up just losing the money! I was told that they HAD to keep it, and although I told the manager that it had come from there and even showed that I didn't have a single penny other than the amount I drew out, less the mortgage payment, for which I showed him the receipt, I was told that Lloyds would not have handed me the forgery as all their notes were checked, and that they could not give me a further £20.00 just on my say so.

I just sincerely hope that when these banks are split I am not put into a position where I HAVE to move my business away from TSB which I would and do recommend to anyone looking for a financial establisment that, as far as I am concerned, really does look after it's customers.