Why can't banks supply a real-time balance?

staffie1

Yes that probably would work. My guess would be however (cynical as I am sometimes) that its the old 80/20 rule at work here - it's the worse off 20% of the population who are affected by these charges, and the rest of the people don't care because it doesn't affect them, therefore a majority would stay silent.
It's a bit like making the sale of cigarettes illegal...we all know it would make perfect sense, but the majority of the population don't smoke so they don't care, and there's money to be made in allowing it to continue.

staffie1

euronorris wrote: »

But, for all we know, the government may be looking at reform in light of the bank charges case and financial issues we face as a country. They may already be looking to other countries and asking; what do they do well? what knowledge can we gain from them and implement here to improve things?

I sincerely hope so. Otherwise, we have a government that thinks throwing money at the problem for long enough will resolve it. And then we have a far bigger problem!

I hope so too. Like you say, we're close to an election and it would be a vote winner I guess.

euronorris

staffie1 wrote: »

Yes that probably would work. My guess would be however (cynical as I am sometimes) that its the old 80/20 rule at work here - it's the worse off 20% of the population who are affected by these charges, and the rest of the people don't care because it doesn't affect them, therefore a majority would stay silent.
It's a bit like making the sale of cigarettes illegal...we all know it would make perfect sense, but the majority of the population don't smoke so they don't care, and there's money to be made in allowing it to continue.

I fear, however, that it won't be long before the 80% are also hit by charges for another part of their banking anyway.

The banks have been getting away with this for quite some time, with very little retribution from the government. A 'slap on the wrist' essentially is all that has happened so far. I fear they may now believe that they can do whatever they like.

Also, there are some of that 80% who are also against the charges.

It may work, it may not. But there's certainly no harm in trying and saying 'Helloooo, you need to sort this out please! I'm very unhappy'.

With the cigarettes, I think there is another factor at play. The tax generated by them. I understand that some of this is paying for the medical care of smokers, but I'm not sure if that exceeds the tax generated by the sales. After all, there are also quite a fair number of smokers who never experience serious health problems and live to a ripe old age. Strange as that is, I wish they understood why. Might go some way into curing certain types of cancer! Still working on it I suspect. And that's not to say that just because a cure is found, that smoking is OK and should be continued. Prevention is better than cure after all.

euronorris

I also think that a lot of the 80% need to open their eyes a bit and see the bigger problem here and realise that some positive changes would benefit us all, the country, as a whole. Instead of just worrying about their so-called 'free banking'. Which isn't free at all anyway.

dunstonh

I hope so too. Like you say, we're close to an election and it would be a vote winner I guess

Or a vote loser. Not having real time balances benefits consumers. Especially those that run their accounts correctly.

You can gain extra interest on your credit balances (and most people are in credit) by having items take longer to come off your balance.

I also think that a lot of the 80% need to open their eyes a bit and see the bigger problem here and realise that some positive changes would benefit us all, the country, as a whole. Instead of just worrying about their so-called 'free banking'. Which isn't free at all anyway.

I have no problem with free banking ending. It will probably remain free for those with an average credit balance above a certain amount and everyone else will be charged.

staffie1

dunstonh wrote: »

Or a vote loser. Not having real time balances benefits consumers. Especially those that run their accounts correctly.

You can gain extra interest on your credit balances (and most people are in credit) by having items take longer to come off your balance.

That never occurred to me, but of course you're quite right. Although I do suspect it's by accident rather than by design...

nellyboy

staffie1 wrote: »

Yes that probably would work. My guess would be however (cynical as I am sometimes) that its the old 80/20 rule at work here - it's the worse off 20% of the population who are affected by these charges, and the rest of the people don't care because it doesn't affect them, therefore a majority would stay silent.
It's a bit like making the sale of cigarettes illegal...we all know it would make perfect sense, but the majority of the population don't smoke so they don't care, and there's money to be made in allowing it to continue.

you cant quote cigarettes, alcohol or fuel as any of your arguments (fuel because of the greenhouse effect..), as the government needs all the money, through taxation, as it can get.

and as for the 80/20 rule, did you know that 80% of road tax actually goes on admin and not the roads!!

staffie1

nellyboy wrote: »

you cant quote cigarettes, alcohol or fuel as any of your arguments (fuel because of the greenhouse effect..), as the government needs all the money, through taxation, as it can get.

and as for the 80/20 rule, did you know that 80% of road tax actually goes on admin and not the roads!!

I quoted cigarettes as an example of something the nation needs to have something done about, but the government for decades has been reluctant to, presumably because of the massive revenue it generates in direct taxation. If the government cared one iota about people, cigarettes as the number 1 killer in this country would have been made illegal years ago.

The government also receives revenue on bank's profits and rely on the banks to keep the payments system, etc, etc going (hence the reason they couldn't allow them to fail recently). We can only hope they will do something to make the banks we own at the moment change their charging structures as a start.

I'm not surprised about the statistics you quote on road tax.

27col

There is no such thing as road tax, and hasn't been for many years. It is Vehicle Excise Duty and just goes into the general pot to be used as the government decides. It certainly is not a tax to pay for the roads specifically.

elaine2303

euronorris wrote: »

That's a good question.

I think a good place to start is if we all started writing to our MP's and to the PM. Ask them for a face to face meeting to discuss it. Or a town/city/village 'question time' type meeting.

If we all started doing that, in combination with writing to the press and gaining publicity about it, the government would start taking notice.

Particularly if we also appealed to opposing parties to include such reforms in their manifestos, close to election time.

They aren't going to change if we sit back and do nothing.

I totally agree. If we all wrote a letter to our MP and asked everyone we know who agrees with the idea to do the same then maybe we would get our voices heard. As you say, we have an election coming up so now's the time to flex our muscles and tell our elected representatives that if they don't do something about this we will be seriously considering where we cast our vote!

Does anyone know which is the bank with the lowest charges because if we all moved our accounts to them then maybe the rest would realise the time of them ripping us off is over and they will not get our business unless they reform their system?

On a related note, something which really bugs pretty much all of us with a printer is the cost of the ink cartridges, but I see that Kodak have started advertising their new printer and that the cost of the cartridges for that are £6.99 & £7.99. Wonder how long it will be before everyone else's prices drop dramatically.................... It usually works like that on the High Street and banks are on the High Street.............