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Ed Miliband's bank plans: would they make any difference?

John Fitzsimons
by Lovemoney Staff John Fitzsimons on 09 July 2012  |  Comments 10 comments

Ed Miliband wants to see two new big players in the banking market. But would that make any real difference?

Ed Miliband's bank plans: would they make any difference?

Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, has set out his ideas on how to improve the banking sector.

These range from a code of conduct for bankers – so that they can be struck off for bad conduct, as happens with doctors – to the launch of a specialist financial crime unit at the Serious Fraud Office.

However, the headline idea is his targeting of the so-called big five of UK banking: Lloyds, Santander, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC. Miliband wants to see them forced to sell off 1,000 branches between them, to allow two new ‘challenger’ banks to add more competition, and in theory, better choice for us all.

Would it make any difference? Is seven really that much better than five?

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Comments (10)

  • yocoxy
    Love rating 137
    yocoxy said

    I get good service from HSBC. I have an authorised overdraft which I use sparingly. I've never paid any bank fees (other than the very small amount of interest on the short term overdrafts mentioned above).

    They do more for me, at lower cost than any other organisation I do business with.

    (and yes, I do include the 'lost' interest on current account balances)

    I even used their free travel insurance that comes with the Premier account recently and was pleasantly surprised at the great service.

    To solve the Barclays issue we need proscutions for fraud, not artificially created banks.

    Report on 10 July 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • tuttogallo
    Love rating 83
    tuttogallo said

    We need a banking system where individual banks can fail without needing to be bailed out by the state.

    Where is the plan for making this happen? I don't believe that anyone is even thinking about this. Until we get another major bank failure it's just tomorrow's problem.

    Report on 24 July 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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