Who will buy LLoyds and Northern Rock

SailorSam

I banked with Northern Rock and when all the problems kicked off i went to the 'hole in the wall' to get cash out, but it came back saying insufficient funds. I knew i had enough in so went into the branch to complain, but all the woman said was it's not you with insufficient funds ..... it's the bank !!

gadgetmind

mjr wrote: »

it would be unwise to assume all mortgages with NRAM are "dodgy debt."

True, bu but you do wonder how much of it, particularly that debt they bought in speculatively, is being serviced.

Ark_Welder

Both companies [Bradford & Bingley, Northen Rock] continued to benefit from the support of the Government in the form of low interest rate loans. NRAM repaid £1.0bn of its loan to reduce the balance to £20.7bn at the half year. No additional funding was drawn by B&B and the balance of Government funding has remained unchanged from December 2010 at £27.0bn.

2. Minimise impairment and losses

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As at 30 June 2011 there were 10,956 cases of B&B mortgages in arrears for three or more months including possessions, a fall of 16% compared to December 2010. For NRAM, the equivalent figure was 27,010 a 6% increase.

The vast majority of customers are up to date with their payments (B&B: 93% and NRAM: 87%). B&B continues to make good progress in respect of customers with serious arrears, reflecting tight management of collection activity. Most buy-to-let customers continue to benefit from a borrowing rate that is less than the rental yield, the result being that the number of customers three months or more in arrears fell from 4.1% to 3.6%, which includes possessions.

The rise in the number of NRAM customer arrears is due in part revising the previous practice of capitalising any arrears once a customer was able to maintain their mortgage payments for a certain period of time. We made this change because we believe it is important to have individual conversations with customers to ensure we are providing the fairest solution to meet their circumstances. In addition, the rise reflects continuing pressures on household incomes and high amounts initially borrowed by some customers relative to their income.

OUTLOOK

The outlook for the UK economy remains uncertain and household incomes will continue to be impacted by increases in taxes, higher inflation and job losses, and inevitably, higher interest rates at some point. We expect more customers to get into difficulties in the remainder of 2011 and this may result in more arrears and repossessions. In these challenging circumstances we are increasing our investment in developing more pro-active contact with customers in financial difficulty.

http://www.n-ram.co.uk/~/media/Files/N/N-RAM/content/corporate-reports/interim_report_2011.pdf?

Masomnia

The NR 'bad bank' is the profitable bit. The whole point of it being there is that no one actually know what's going to happen. It could all get wound up with low impairments and the tax payer makes a healthy profit as it is so far.

waveneygnome

Copied from another thread:-

I wish the new bank luck, and hope that the Virgin brand will bring a new force to high street banking.

My concerns are though that Virgin bought a bank a couple of years ago....I think Church something something from a group of solicitors...in order to gain a banking license. From the outside, Virgin hasn't done much with that.

In addition, Virgin financial products are not known for low cost/good value. Their range of ISA's, life insurance etc all offer poor value compared to other players.

The Virgin One Account - a pioneer in offset mortgage markets - was sold by Virgin to RBS.......who swiftly upset many customers with there interest rate policy changes.

Virgin launched a Cancer Insurance policy a while back....and I don't think it sold too many policies.

I think that customers are more savvy now and can't be dazzled by the brand name - Virgin will need to deliver good, solid, competitive products if they are to make a real impact on the high street.