Banking crisis
Where has all that central bank COVID-19 money gone?
‘Once the public health crisis of COVID-19 is over, it might yet expose the flaws in this capital-led economy just as it has exposed the inadequacies of our public health systems that has suffered from…
Bankers ignore lessons of the past
‘The ruin of the City of Glasgow Bank was the biggest collapse in British banking history – until 2008. Its story contains salutary lessons for bankers in any age…
Too big to reform? How banks capture the state
‘What we have done is to allow the banks to get away with this scot-free and, in the crisis that was caused, we have made the poor pay for it and we have made them…
Conclusion? RBS Shredded Part Four
If the right moves are made, RBS could become a great bank again. If not, Ian Fraser doubts the bank will exist in ten years’ time. An ethical revolution is required
The Guilty Men: RBS Shredded Part Three
As RBS crashed there was only one man in the driving seat – but his fellow passengers could have helped to steer a safer course. Edited and abridged extracts from Ian Fraser’s best selling Shredded…
Capital flight – how RBS was shredded: Part Two
[Goodwin] told Alistair Darling that conditions were very bad and that RBS had been considering whether to stop lending to customers. Darling asked Goodwin what would resolve the situation and Goodwin said ‘long-term funding’. How ‘Fred…
How RBS was shredded: Part One
‘We don’t care if customers are made to suffer, as long as we save our skins,’ continuing our tenth anniversary series, Ian Fraser translates ‘banker-speak’ as Royal Bank of Scotland desperately struggled to survive a…
How Lloyds swallowed HBOS hook, line and sinker
‘I think the deal stinks’ said one Lloyds shareholder. ‘A lot of people will lose their jobs’, said the former Bank of Scotland CEO. No-one foresaw the full and lasting cost of Lloyds rushed takeover…
Life savings lost in HBOS crash – Apocalypse Now: Part 2
Who has paid the cost in the HBOS crash? Inside HBOS, staff earning £15,000 -£18,000, who were also shareholders, were watching their savings evaporate. Ray Perman continues the story of a banking disaster unresolved to…
Apocalypse now and then…ten years after HBOS crash
The events leading up to the crash began in New York, 7 September 2008. A week later the shock waves engulfed Scotland’s oldest bank in Edinburgh.
How Scotland’s premier banks crashed the economy: ten years on
To mark the tenth anniversary of the financial crisis, Sceptical Scot’s new series focuses on home-made follies; the extraordinary mistakes made by two once revered and typically prudent Scottish institutions: the Bank of Scotland and…