How Barclays once tried to trouser my cash!
Nothing much surprises me about Britain's bigger banks. I moved my account from NatWest to Barclays after the former paid my salary cheque into somebody else's account for three months running, without notification until threats were issued when I consequently became overdrawn, and a subsequent refusal to remove the charges they therefore imposed nor any attempt to issue sufficient apology for the inconvenience caused. That was in the late nineteen-sixties when my particular Barclays experience began.
I gave up on Britain for the second time in the late nineteen-eighties, when my current account was still with Barclays. For the British business I had started up in the interim, I chose to bank with Lloyds, comment enough on my long Barclays experience. Paperwork involved in changing regular payments, like thousands others I suspect, had kept me with that bank.
As the years overseas passed by, my use of this UK current account dwindled, thus without notification Barclays closed the account. In 2002 my daughter was to attend a British University, in expectation of her needing funds and opening her own account I transferred a largish sum, sufficient for accomodation expenses and all the usual undergraduate purchase that would be necessary, to my Barclays account, fortunately from a UK branch of HSBC. When I presented myself at the Barclays branch of the University town concerned, to draw that cash as I believed I had arranged, I was told they had neither record of my account nor of the funds transfer.
Eventually as I had happily made such transfer through a UK bank, I recouped the potential loss of those not inconsiderable funds, I was too dejected and defeated to pursue the struggle for the lossed balance on the closed account. Nor did I have the time or energy to pursue the matter with the supposed UK banking regulators, why waste one's energy when such possibly dishonest inconsistencies seemed to be becoming the norm.
So am I surprised at the news of Barclay's manipulation of Libor and the apparent unwillingness of the UK police or criminal prosecutors to get involved? Not at all!
What does surprise me is this aspect, which the UK media seems to have so far to have left unreported or commented upon: Libor (as explained by a regulator interviewed on TV in this case,) has input from sixteen London based banks, interest rates paid are submitted and the higher four and lower four are dropped before averaging the other eight to set the index interest rate level. It appears for any manipulation to be effective at least five banks would need to be involved, which banks, therefore, are the others involved with Barclays.
I gave up on Britain for the second time in the late nineteen-eighties, when my current account was still with Barclays. For the British business I had started up in the interim, I chose to bank with Lloyds, comment enough on my long Barclays experience. Paperwork involved in changing regular payments, like thousands others I suspect, had kept me with that bank.
As the years overseas passed by, my use of this UK current account dwindled, thus without notification Barclays closed the account. In 2002 my daughter was to attend a British University, in expectation of her needing funds and opening her own account I transferred a largish sum, sufficient for accomodation expenses and all the usual undergraduate purchase that would be necessary, to my Barclays account, fortunately from a UK branch of HSBC. When I presented myself at the Barclays branch of the University town concerned, to draw that cash as I believed I had arranged, I was told they had neither record of my account nor of the funds transfer.
Eventually as I had happily made such transfer through a UK bank, I recouped the potential loss of those not inconsiderable funds, I was too dejected and defeated to pursue the struggle for the lossed balance on the closed account. Nor did I have the time or energy to pursue the matter with the supposed UK banking regulators, why waste one's energy when such possibly dishonest inconsistencies seemed to be becoming the norm.
So am I surprised at the news of Barclay's manipulation of Libor and the apparent unwillingness of the UK police or criminal prosecutors to get involved? Not at all!
What does surprise me is this aspect, which the UK media seems to have so far to have left unreported or commented upon: Libor (as explained by a regulator interviewed on TV in this case,) has input from sixteen London based banks, interest rates paid are submitted and the higher four and lower four are dropped before averaging the other eight to set the index interest rate level. It appears for any manipulation to be effective at least five banks would need to be involved, which banks, therefore, are the others involved with Barclays.
posted by Martin at 7:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home