Interesting Facts

According to a poll conducted by Populsus, even banks are more popular than the 'big six' energy giants in the UK. (Only the tobacco industry, and payday loan firms were less popular. Supermarkets were the most positively viewed companies with a "Like" rating of 58.6. They can't have included chocolate manufacturers in the list!) Source

In the USA money laundering is called smurfing. (In the original series of the Smurfs, the little blue characters tended to replace a verb with some form of the word "smurf"; e.g. "I feel like smurfing some bread," instead of, "I feel like eating some bread". In the USA the DEA started using the word as a code for Structuring, the act of making money transfers repeatedly in small amounts to avoid suspicion.)

French bank Societe Generale has started a new bank card especially for women. (The pink-and-gold-coloured "Pour Elle" bank card, offers holders up to €200 of handbag theft insurance and a dedicated hotline for up to two electrician, locksmith or other handyman callouts per year. And before you shout "sexism" a spokeswoman from the bank has said, "5% of the cardholders are men".)

According to research by the Co-operative Bank, about 70 per cent of adults in the UK have debt problems. (It's bad enough having "money worries", but according to the same research, one in 20 of them turn to payday lenders. These organisations offer extortionate short-term, loans secured against a customer's next pay cheque, where interest rates can be as high as 2,000% EAR (effective APR). Of course payday lenders defend themselves; they do not compare their interest rates to those of mainstream lenders. Instead, they compare their fees to the overdraft, late payment, and penalty fees that will be incurred if the customer is unable to secure any credit whatsoever. But if you do the sums, it's easy to see them for what they are - usurers.  Due to the extremely short-term nature of payday loans, the difference between nominal APR and effective APR (EAR) can be substantial, because EAR takes compounding into account. For a £15 charge on a £100 2-w...

Spain will reimpose border checks for a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting in Barcelona in May. (The only grounds for restoring border controls under the Schengen Treaty (the EU's passport-free travel treaty) is a threat to public order. Now why on earth would they think that a meeting of bankers would be a threat to public order?)

According to the UN around 12 million people do not have citizenship of any country. (So, how do you end up stateless? It can happen when nations such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia break up, or new countries come into being after colonial powers leave, such as in parts of Africa and Asia, and without a nationality people can find it difficult to acquire any kind of legal status, including issues like property rights, getting married legally, registering the birth of a child or simple things like opening a bank account. It makes me value my passport a bit more.)

According to a study by Lloyds bank,  around 185,000 homeowners in Britain own property worth £1m or more. (In 2010, 7,185 buyers spent a million-plus on a property, equal to around 20 people every day, an astonishing 125 homes were sold for £5m or more last year.  But nearly 1 in 4 homes bought for £1m or more last year were in the exclusive London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea or Westminster, so I doubt I'll ever get onto that kind of property ladder.) Source: This is Money

According to the Financial Times £2.5bn gross (£1.5bn net)will be raised by the super-tax on bank bonuses in the UK. (Of course bankers are furious at the 50 per cent super-tax. The first £25,000 of bonuses is exempt, so a lot of banks have reduced bonuses to this amount, with the "understanding" that employees will be "seen all right" later, when this annoying tax is out of the way. Personally I think the tax should stay in place until every penny of taxpayer's money that was used to bail out the banks has been paid back.)

According to a watchdog report the great bank bailout for banks in the UK has hit 850 billion pounds. (This involved buying shares, underwriting debts and lending money to banks including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) during the crisis. Northern Rock was nationalised outright. Now LBG is 43-percent owned by the taxpayer while RBS, ravaged by the credit crunch and the takeover of Dutch giant ABN Amro at the top of the market, is set to become 84 percent state-owned after the latest bailout. From a nation of shopkeepers, to a nation of bankers.)

According to Terry O'Neill, a celebrity photographer, Ringo Starr's mum wanted him to work in a bank. (All bankers take note. If only you hadn't listened to your mum...)

The British government announced a £37bn rescue package for the three major UK banks.

The government of Iceland seized Kaupthing Bank, the country's largest lender, effectively completing the nationalization of the whole banking system after the previous takeover of Glitnir and the No.2 lender, Landsbanki.

powered by ODEO According to research released by Sybase 365, Americans are obsessed with managing their personal finances. (More than a third of them, are able to state their bank balance at any given time, and an additional 42 percent typically know their bank balance to the nearest $200. What a shame they don't watch their economy that closely.)

It's an imprisonable offence to keep money you notice has been wrongfully deposited in your bank account. (It's called "retaining wrongful credit" and unlike in Monopoly when you can keep the money if you pick up the "Bank error in your favour - collect £200" card, you have to take every step to inform the bank of their error. So much for the law of finders keepers.)