Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/10/rbs-deliberately-crushed-more.html
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I am sure the good ol’ USofA is gonna notice and follow their lead soon enough. 
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A successful, beneficial business banking model used to be geared toward evaluating a business proposal and credit worthiness of the enterprise behind it, then providing credit based solely on those merits. The entire point of this was to promote economic activity, and such financing was effectively a form of utility that was a force of good in the social sense. Profit was guaranteed by a moderate transaction fee, and a firm would become very profitable by promoting new business creation.
Thanks to deregulation and “liberalization” banks now review every request for finance as a way of gaining a profit share without needing to go through the usual legal hoops of actual equity ownership.
Buying a rental property? They’ll add points not just for risk adjustment, but also to siphon a share of the rents you collect.
Want to start a new business? They’ll adjust your rates to make sure you don’t leave them out of any realized profits… before you even have a chance to pay your overhead.
Want to expand your business? Suddenly, you find yourself with a not-so-silent partner second guessing the details even though they approved the loan based on your business proposal.
Anti-tax zealots complain about drains on the economy, but you never hear them address the drain on activity by banks placing toll booths between every business transaction.
Anti-regulation zealots complain about hampering business with needless rules, but you never hear them address the banks paying themselves huge bonuses based on their impact on GDP, even though that metric is substantially corrupted by the lack of rules that allow banks to be a financial drag on the very businesses they are supposed to be promoting.
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Gosh, it’s like RBS is the Mitt Romney of the UK.
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And will any bankers be arrested? Thrown in jail? Torn apart by angry badgers? No?
what a surprise…
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Yet another variation on the Mob bustout business model, as practised by vulture capital firms like Bain. Here’s a brief video primer on how the original works:
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Sadly, there is only one surprising thing about this story.
Apparently Buzzfeed do real journalism. Who knew?
Edit- Meh, actually with less snark this time:
During the worst days of the recession, the UK also had the PPI mis-selling scandal going on. Back then, it was commonplace for banks to abruptly terminate the relationship with a customer who had won (or even just made) a PPI claim, leading to their overdrafts being repayable instantly. That was what they were prepared to do to the comparatively highly regulated retail customer. Business customers (who are supposedly more sophisticated, so are not nearly as well protected) were directly in the firing line. So no surprises here.
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A chop shop with better lawyers and a nice suit. What could possibly go wrong?
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As with the Weasels Fargo case in the States, prosecutors have to start putting white collar criminals in jail for this kind of stuff. Just issuing a report and maybe fining the company is never going to change anything. The chance of doing a year or two of hard time might just be the kind of deterent that’s needed.
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Wow, it’s like stabbing a baby in the throat to steal (read acquire) its candy. If 100% of candy can be acquired and the baby with 100% predictability won’t be able to sue, now that’s what we at the bank call success.
I don’t know man, what’s the word for it? abhorrent, abysmal, unforgivable maybe?
I can’t even look at this s. any more.
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I think recently they took some of that sweet, sweet, clickbait money, and gave it to some proper journalists, because they’ve been putting out some actual, proper articles, and they seem entirely happy to rock the boat.
This is how you’re supposed to do new media, kids.
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“Tory Oversight”?
£17million in (tax payers money) bonuses to senior managers (off a £2bn loss) whilst closing the bonus scheme for branch staff.
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In the US there are over 100 new bank fraud prosecutions every month. The fact that this makes such a little dent in the problem that it looks like nothing at all is being done says a lot about the banking industry.
Can’t the monarchy at least tell RSB they need to remove the R from its name?
A long-ish while ago, I backed a kickstarter for [redacted]. It involved some physical rewards, which have yet to be sent out… Why? Because the company’s bank has declared that it has concerns about the company’s stability and has locked up some of the company’s funds as insurance against default. Which is absolutely illegal and the company would absolutely win in court had it tried to pursue the matter. But if they were to try, the bank told them it would call in the company’s loan, bankrupting it.
There’s not even an attempt to pretend that what the bank is doing is legal. It’s entirely and blatantly “so what are you going to do about it?”
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Someone lost their knighthood for it. What more do you people want?
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Angry badgers you say… Are there any other kind?
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Angry honey badgers! You know they don’t give a shit.
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