Banks have been in the news recently and have dominated the conversations of everyone with respect to the breaking stories. Overcharging, misuse of advantage share options, the ever prevailant off-shore accounts, browsing websites resulting in very high management resigning, and more. Where will it all end? I don’t think that anyone in this country has been happy with banks for some time now but surely a reform must now be in order? source: Irish Times
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Personally, I have never been happy with the way my investments have been handled by a certain bank and always queried the way in which my money was invested by them but frequently hitting brick walls on the subject. With recent revelations one would have to wonder why the information could not be gathered for me. Another thing I find a little funny is that in the 15 years or so that I have possessed an account with a certain bank there has only been a couple of times when I have received a statement of charges, completely out of the blue. What I mean by this is that in 15 years I have only ever received a statement of charges on a very, very odd occasion. Concidentally these statements always coincide with some controversy within this bank that invariably costs them money. I hate to be cynical but hmmmm…
In a society driven by greed, is it fair to have the finances of an ever struggling society so badly managed by these institutions? We have been told time and time again to “shop around” but what happens when you run out of shops and you still haven’t found anything feasible? Banks are big business and they have tough targets for their branches to meet, sadly this money is not given back in interest to the customers but there are an ever increasing number of “fat cat” managers who are scooping large salaries and massive yearly bonuses regardless of performance. They’re all bankers!!