Bank Profits and Charges

So, with some recent bad press about bank profit numbers and charges i thought that it may be worthwile giving my opinions as a bank staff member on the subject.

This week Barclays Bank PLC, 1 Chruchill Place, Canary Wharf, announced record profits of 7 billion pounds. That is £7,000,000,000 for those not good with big numbers, and in terms of profits, it is pretty damn big. It is the first of the major banks to announce 2006 profits, and it is widely expected that the others will follow suit with massive, growing profits.

Firstly, it is necessery to point out that a hefty amount of these profits, approx. £4bn have come from the Investment Banking arm, Barclays Capital.

When it comes to profits, i am not too bothered. It would be good if the bank offered a slightly higher dividend to shareholders perhaps but aside from that it is a business that sets out to make money like anyother service providing business such as Tesco, who make massive profits off the back of unfair trade, or BP, who despite high oil prices and taxes still make increduously high profits.

Now, to charges. It has been suggested that the charges people incurr are a massive slice of the banks profits, and i am in no way denying that they seriously beef them up. Some of the stats however are incorrect.

The BBC one o'clock news on profit results day, 20/02/07 claimed that Barclays makes £200.00 a second from charges. This would amount to just over £6,400,000,000 if my mathematics is correct. This being slightly under the amount of profit we took in total, excluding the 4bn in capital profits and any profits we got from loan/mortgage intrest etc can mean that it is in no way correct, but anyway, onto the point of whether bank charges are ethical.

This argument i divide into two parts, a) are they extortionate? I answer yes, I and many other bank employees agree that the charges we give to customers who go over their agreed overdraft limit are in fact too high. But we believe there should be a charge; this is where the second part comes in; b) Jon, are charges right to begin with? I answer yes to that too. For the simple fact, and it all boils down to this, the fact that the customer is using money that they do not have. In effect, it is stealing. Buying without the funds. This of course generates a lot of work for the bank and a charge is definatly necessery. But this again leads us back to the magnitude of the charging. I think there has to be some severe loosening of the rules. I personally believe that it should be calculated each week, at a time decided by the customer when they open the account. They say "I would like close of business friday to be my charge evaluation time" and if they were over their limit at this time a charge would be incurred. Though obviously lower than £30.

Currently Barclays refunds the charge if it is the first time in 12 months you have been over your overdraft limit. There is pleanty of time for someone to come in and organise an overdraft if they are worried that it may be an issue in the near future.

Also, finally i think it is a good sign that their are many people who should simply learn to manage their accounts and finances better and not spend money when they are not sure they have the funds to back them up.

Peace out dudes. Jon

London = grand

So lads, and any laddettes reading this post, this weekend i have spent in London, and i was more amazed than i thought id be about this most recent trip, the last one being quite a few years back, barring a couple of trips to the airport. One fact overall has come from the trip though. I must return.

Primarily it was a trip for my sisters 16th birthday to the theatre to see Les Miserables. Ill get to that later, but it was a sightseeing tour as well, and boy did i sightsee. Couple of places friday evening, including Covent Garden and the Royal Opera house and then on saturday Oxford Street and all its finest shops, Leicester Square, Knightsbridge, the Natural History Museum, Harrods, with a particualrly amazing Rock exhibition on the second floor, with guitars from the collections of Keith Richards, the men of Status Quo, and many more - there was a full sized model of nearly every variety of guitar ever produced in there. Then St. James' Park, Whitehall, Downing Street (no appearence by Blair unfortunatly) and Westminster. Then in the evening we toured the absolutly packed Picadilly and China Town, with the impending chinese new year, ate and saw the production. Which, and i am not a fan of the theatre greatly, was very very good indeed.

This morning we toured a few more spots, including St. Pauls and the LSE before heading home. I cannot wait to return, hopefully organising a small group of us to go in the next couple of weeks. I seriously hope i get to live there when im older. And i returned with Phone and Wallet intact, a good trip by London's current standards.

Laters baby,
Jon

Answer to Rob's Call

Here is a post in answer of Rob's call for more posting. He is right, it has been to long, so, as one great Harry S. Truman said, the buck stops here, so i will post away.
Hmm, since christmas eh? Well not much has happened, my music i feel is coming on leaps and bounds, though there are some days that i get so frustrated that i just want to lob the guitar out of the window, but i guess that is the curse of being a rock god. not. I am currently enjoying my first full weeks holiday since i started work back in September, and then when i go back next monday i do not have any more holiday until July. But i am trying not to think about that yet.

In the way of News i have decided which presidential candidate i am supporting for next year having finally got off the fence with regard to the H. Clinton v B. Obama contest. After watching a speech on this last saturday i have decided that Mr. Obama will be my personal choice, albeit if i feel that America is not ready to elect a black man yet. But i can live in hope. Obviously i will support whoever the Democratic candidate is in the final weeks next year, but in this pre-nomination climate, i am supporting Mr. B.O. ( <- How unfortunate).

I was also intending on starting a weekly discussion topic, and hence, going with this posts theme, does anyone think that America is ready for either a black or woman president? All answers welcome.

For now though, laters dudes and dudettes.
Jon ;)

P.S. Have illegally signed up to CNBC's $1,000,000 stock challenge (the illegal bit is that i am not a resident of the US, which i find in this new internet age quite pathetic) which begins in March, so if i disappear for no apparant reason then go speak to the FBI or CIA.