Banks blame "free accounts" for making them fix Libor rates.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Talk about blaming the victim...

"Several major financial institutions under inquiry in the Libor case are going to push for introducing account fees for their customers. They blame 'free' accounts as one of the reasons behind interest rate rigging.
The major banks including Britain’s Barclays and Spain’s Santander are expected to argue in favor of introducing account fees at a meeting of the UK Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, the Daily Mail reports. Banks must submit evidence on the Libor case to the Commission by the end of this week. The panel was set up after Barclays admitted it was involved in Libor fixing and paid a more than $450 million fine to settle the probe.

Bankers as well as some British officials say free banking services hinders real competition in the market. Treasury Select Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie, who is heading the Commission, has recently described free banking as a ‘myth’.

Meanwhile Barclays’ new chairman, Sir David Walker told The Sunday Telegraph the rate fixing scandals were a ‘consequence of not charging for bank accounts’, and said he supports charging customers fees.

Last month the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Sir Adair Turner, also criticized free accounts ‘One important barrier to competitive entry into the UK personal banking sector is obvious – the fact that the core product is usually given away for free, sold at below cost of production,’ he said."
http://rt.com/business/news/banks-libor-account-fee-102/

[DetlefK]

1. They had to scam to make ends meet? Poor Guys.

Wait a second: I deposit my money at their bank, and they are free to do with it whatever they want (even turn a profit by investing it!) until I want it back.

So, if they are lousy investors and can't live of the few percent of interest they make by gambling MY MONEY, is it the systems fault or the fault of the bank's incompetent and overpaid CEOs and managers?
Guy gets several millions a year. He's damn better worth his money!

[JDPriestly]

2. And these guys call themselves businessmen?

If they run a bank, they are supposed to know how to make other people's money create wealth and jobs.

They don't know what they are doing if they need to charge the people who provide them with the money they are supposed to invest.

The real problem is that neither the British nor the American government has held these guys to accounts. No one has required them to take responsibility for the scams they pulled and the way they tore down the real, formerly profitable, Main Street economies in the US and across Europe.

[Demeter]

3. Only Thing the Banksters Know is the Con Game

They couldn't act like a real banker to save their souls.

[Fuddnik]

4. Let them charge fees.

And let their customers remove their money and put it some place that doesn't.

[Po_d Mainiac]

5. That buys u a seat in the front row! n/t