BEWARE! THE BANKS ARE OUT TO GET YOU!

[Tripps]

Sung Kook "Bill" Hwang, has been sentenced to 18 years

You'd have thought the BBC would know by now, that in a Chinese name - the family name or 'surname' comes first so he should be referred to as 'Sung' .

We don't call Mao Tse Tung, Tung do we? We call him Mao, and the current Chinese PM is Xi - not Jin Ping.

Pedants of the world unite.

[Tizer]

But he's not in China, Tripps, and he's a prominent Wall Street investor in the US and would be known by all as Bill Hwang.

[Tripps]

but he's not in China,

Fair enough. I can't take on the whole of the USA - though they should know better as well..

[Stanley]

Whatever his name, I agree with the judge. It was a ridiculous defence....

[Tizer]

Fair enough. I can't take on the whole of the USA - though they should know better as well..

That may be true of half of them but I have my doubts about the half that voted for Trump.

[Tripps]

The bank asked me to "update my contact details "last nght.

They lied.

After quite a tussle with complexity and ambiguity, I find out this morning by email, that I have asked to go paperless and get no statements in the post. That is the opposite of what I thought I had done. They say if you change your mind "go to settings" and you can reverse it all

Another lie - "settings " is well hidden - but I teased it out, and am now back to square one (I think and hope)

"The bank is not your friend" and Hutber's Law applies yet again - "Improvement equals deterioration".

[Stanley]

I'm definitely with you on this one David and still insist on an old-fashioned snail mail letter delivering my monthly statement for my account and credit card statement.

[Tizer]

It's taken a long time for the FCA to get this sorted...
`Barclays fined £40 million over 'reckless' fundraising' LINK

[Stanley]

That's astounding Peter and I don't understand it even after reading the whole article. The main factors I can identify are that it has taken 16 years and criminal charges against Barclay executives were dropped.
How is something like this going to improve 'Financial Conduct'? It's a sick joke and we are being taken for fools.....

[Tizer]

A banner ad, shown below, is spread across the top of the front page of the Financial Times this morning. I don't know what the lass (or lad - can't be sure these days) is drinking but it looks like one of those mega-sized German glasses of lager. Is the the FT promoting drinking too excess? And what is HTSI? An acronym for some kind of lager? Or does it advertise the Highland Third Sector Interface, `an independent charity on a mission to support, encourage and inspire work with community groups, clubs, charities and other third sector organisations'?



I investigated on behalf of OGFB and found this article published in the Guardian 2 years ago... Guardian

[Stanley]

"“Argos catalogue for rich people"
How to spend it magazine....
It looks like a sick joke to us but I suppose the view is different for the people getting the mega bonuses. I've seen some financial sector results and they don't look to be suffering from austerity like the rest of us. Here's a handy little factoid for you.... Wealth in Great Britain is even more unequally divided than income. In 2020, the ONS calculated that the richest 10% of households hold 43% of all wealth. The poorest 50%, by contrast, own just 9%.
That's out of date now and it will be even worse.
So we don't need HTSI thank you.....

[Tizer]

This seems as good a place as any for this news. We saw how this boss of the top US medical insurance company was assassinated the other day. Now here's the explanation why...
`Killing of insurance CEO reveals simmering anger at US health system' LINK
...The reaction to the crime also exposed a simmering rage against a trillion-dollar industry....

[Stanley]

Ye Peter and no wonder. I have told you about my friend in Hawaii whose uncle killed himself when he was diagnosed with cancer because he knew it would bankrupt the whole family. This is not uncommon under the American system.
So never stop fighting for the NHS!

[Tripps]

A bit of good news. My car insurance (with the bank) which I'd been waiting for with some apprehension, has arrived.

Down by 20 % ! I think that's a first.

[Big Kev]

That's a result. I renewed my home insurance with the same company as last year, the renewal quote was cheaper than any of the comparison sites.

[Tizer]

`Bitcoin hits new record high of more than $106,000' BBC
Just think of all the computing power used and CO2 produced! Elon Musk will probably take over and fly off to Mars with the proceeds.

[Stanley]

I understand what you say about the computing power and energy used Peter but I fail to understand Bitcoin itself.
Are there any actual coins? Or is it just a concept and nothing tangible exists.... It's completely outside my experience.
(As are Non Fungible Tokens..... )

[Tizer]

There are no physical coins. It's all digital. I guess people buy it using ApplePay or GooglePay on their smartphones but I don't know what you get in exchange. I suppose it's a code of some kind which you can then use to buy stuff or save as an investment. It's ironic that newspapers are currently reporting that people are shifting from card and phone payment back to real cash!

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Peter. It sounds to me to be totally divorced from reality. (And very volatile...... )

[Whyperion]

I read that Blackrock Investment has bought the Panama Canal (well some of the port handling facilities) Does that mean the US has it now ? or not?

[Whyperion]

The ECB (European Central Bank) reduced its interest rates on Thursday afternoon during its 05th March meeting, as analysts had anticipated.

The interest rates on the deposit facility, will be decreased to 2.50%, ( money paid to a commercial bank for deposits)
the main refinancing operations 2.65% ( money paid by a commercial bank for borrowing on weekly terms )
and the marginal lending facility 2.90% ( money paid by a commercial bank for borrowing on overnight terms )
with effect from 12 March 2025.
It is though, barring significant external economic shocks these will be the normal base rates for some time to come.
It is interesting that these are lower than the Bank of England but I dont know to what extent EU banks can deal with the Bank of England as such. the implication is that a european bank could earn more from loaning money to a UK one and indeed this is how international moneymarkets work.
Naturally the rates dont really effect commercial or indivuals borrowings - as there are lots of other paperwork costs added and the mark up for mortgages, credit cards and so on, but headline savings rates are going to eventually head to not a lot more than 2.49percent to 2.89percent , which is not a lot for a year but I suppose it keeps your money safer than under the bed.

[Whyperion]

Hardly bank , but Trump's economics seem to be
Checking my modest ISA (Which no doubt invests in lots of things it shouldnt but brings in the divis) over about 10 days it has lost 1.5percent of value and I expect that to go down again next week.
Down another three quarter of a percent today


Crypto - Surely AI should be able to track rogue transaction (or is AI still really GIGO)

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on a bitcoin hack.
2 hours ago
Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully cashed out at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist. The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago. Since then, it's been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash. Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day - potentially funnelling the money into the regime's military development. "Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they're doing," says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic. Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says. "I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash." Elliptic's analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now "gone dark", meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered. The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime's military and nuclear development. On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit's suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to. ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers .
North Korea must think digital currencies are a good thing!

[Tripps]

I am watching a very long advert for a new loan product called "Drafty". It's a sort of flexible line of credit "if you don't borrow, you don't pay anything". However if you do borrow - a "typical APR is quoted as 96.2 %".

There are loan sharks in jail for lending like that.

[Stanley]

I couldn't agree more David. I have never been able to understand why ridiculous rates like that aren't illegal.