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This is beyond a joke. We keep hearing of this bank being saved or that bank. And now West Bromwich Building Society! But the fact is: the world of banking and finance will not be saved until some big changes are made. Now is the time to make those changes. This is the moment -



I truly believe this is the moment.

Just as we though it was safe to go back in to the water!

This story has been building for a while and the figures shown above, if correct, show a poisiton considerably worse than the management have been spinning in recent weeks.

The story circulating locally has been that the FSA asked the Coventry Building Society to step in but they apparently baulked at the idea because of the commercial and buy to let loans.

I would imagine a best case scenario would be for a takeover of the savings accounts by Coventry with the loans thrown into the B&B; Dunfermline and other government controlled toxic loan books.

This would probably keep most of the branches open but would no doubt see the West Brom Head Office close.

So would I be right in thinking that the difference between the West Bromwich and Dunfermline building societies is that the Dunfermline was Scottish and Brown saw an opportunity to embarrass the SNP Government.

Did someone actually say that the recession was over?

Ask him to do some figures that show the effect of the huge amounts of quantititive easing on the economy and what will happen when this comes to an end?

The mind boggles at the prospect.

Or will QE continue until inflation wipes out any hope of a recovery or even worse plunges the country into depression.

business as usual until whoever takes them over closes all the branches and makes all the staff redundant I guess, like the C&G announcement earlier in the week??

anyway, the NIESR and others are today saying that the recession is as good as over; I wonder why you haven't reported this

I also worry for the sanity of many regular Peston bloggers if there is no longer an economic disaster to discuss; what will people do?

And what will happen to your blog? will it be taken down?

And will the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ redesign the jagged, downward pointing arrow of economic gloom logo?

So many questions and so few answers

personally I think we all need a break for the rest of 09 before the 2nd part of the W-shaped recession, driven by stagflation, gets going properly in 2010

and don't worry fellow Pestonites, there will be lots of economic worries to worry about for the foreseeable future

''But the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury fear that many of the medium-size societies are perhaps a bit too small to thrive in an economy where access to funding has become more difficult.''


Which translates into a dozen or more will leave the high street leaving consuemrs with less choice for savings and mortgage products.


With less choice comes less competition which means consumers lose out again.

There's a lot of psuedo-optimistic talk about the end of recession being nigh. Let's think about why this isn't the case.

Look at the unprecedented efforts made by the government and financiers to put more money into the system. Interest rates at half a point; government borrowing the highest ever (in monetary terms); money being printed. Of course, if you flood the system with money things will pick-up, but this success is really storing up greater failure - I'd like to be excused from being accused of showing a Fabius-type character who sees the gloom in everything.

If successful and lending re-starts then the excessive amount of money will lead to inflation in two ways: the first is that the pound will lose value and we'll be importing inflation that way; the second is that in an attempt to keep up the real value of the debt that lenders have leant they will raise interest rates. This will mean that companies will have to raise prices - workers will demand higher wages -companies will have to raise prices - and so on. How can this end?

Well, I doubt the traditional remedy of raising interest rates by the Bank of England will work because interest rates will be the problem; more money can't be printed without increasing the inflation we're trying to get out of; and government can't subsidise because of the weakness of the pound.

It looks like we're heading for the worst of all worlds: inflationary depression.

The key to the whole is issue is debt and the means of exchange. Yet these are the issues that are not being dealt with by governments or by individuals. In fact, understandably, debt is actually increasing; and there means of exchange is being corrupted and devalued further!

So... is West Bromwich in Scotland?

Here is another example of wreckage from over-priced property.
REPOSESSION LOSSES ARE ALL BEING ADDED TO YOUR TAX BILL.
That is why banks and governments must keep a tight control on property valuations.
The taxpayer is already propping up the property market, and the majority of the damage of the last few years has been converted into taxes for all of us.
PROFITS FROM OVER PRICED PROPERTY NOW GO INTO PRIVATE POCKETS, BUT LOSSES ARE GIVEN TO THE TAXPAYER. (Just like the banks).
Those who believe that it will be good when the property market starts to rocket again, are deluding themselves....overheated property market equals taxes, taxes, taxes.
We must never again haemorrhage public money down the gaping drain of over-priced property.
Governments must learn, learn, learn.

The House of Cards or is it the Domino effect?
Either way the Financial Authority does seem to have their dirty fingers in this one as well.
Never mind, as there will only be an elected House of Lords shortly, we surely can look forward to the fact, that those responsible will not be collecting the ermine as a bonus.

I realise that as a journalist, Mr Peston has a duty to the public, but let us hope that his keenness to break headline grabbing stories does not cause a panic amongst the members, escalating a situation that the FSA is, no doubt, well on top of, into a major incident along the lines of what happened following the Northern Rock release.

The Chief Executive of this Society flatly denied that the Society was in this parlous financial state just a few days ago. If the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is correct, obviously the CE was not telling the truth. It is unfortunate when promiment financial leaders cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

Another day another bust bank.

Ive had an account with West Bromwich BS for many years and to see it go from friendly local BS to *hard sell harassment* attitude was depressing.
It became a phycological battle with them just to get my paying in book off them on a number of occasions - they hold onto it at the counter and try for all they are worth to sell and to anyone - the other week I witnessed a guy in his eighties being harassed even though he told the women his age she kept on and persuaded him to go into a one to one room.

This is the world Gordon Brown has brought us.

With regard to the comment about the Britannia what part of merging with the financially sound co op bank can be taken as coping well?

This should come as no suprise. West Bromwich BS is run by the same Chief Executive, Finance Director (plus a couple of others) that oversaw the demise of Portman Building Society into Nationwide a couple of years back.

Wee Scamp there are lots of labour marginal seats in the part of the West Midlands where the West Brom BS are strong.

Both West Bromwich MP's are Labour MP's and the MP for West Browmwich East is Tom Watson possibly Gordon's best friend and until the recent reshuffle the Cabinet Office Minister.

It was him that resigned from Government and called for Tony Blair to stand down in 2006 and also he was one of the two Labour MP's caught up in the Cameron spoof on YouTube. he was also caught up in the damian McBride story

Blair stand down story



cameron story



McBride story

This has actually made me chuckle - the finance director of the building society I work for recently left us to go work at the West Brom BS. The same director who oversaw us get heavily involved with Icelandic banks, Bradford and Bingley and even to a limited extent, the Dunfermline! Good to see he's keeping up the good work.

I would love to know where Mr Peston gets his information from & what benefit he feels he brings to this country in leaking the information he obtains. While many people are responsible for helping this current financial crisis on its way, Mr Peston in my mind has damaged this country forever by the constant leaks of "information" which frankly are not in the public interest & actually just cause worry & distress. It will be interesting to see whether you actually publish this but it is the feeling of many responsible people in the city who did not contribute to the situation we find ourselves in today, not everyone in the city has been reckless with other peoples money.

15 This is the world Gordon Brown has brought us.

Brown gets blamed for everything....... I think you lot should look at history! Maggie changed this country far more, and caused so much more suffering.

So when Robert Peston, two months ago in his blog on 30th March 2009, stated:

The rest of the building society sector is in pretty good shape.
Barring an economic disaster, no other substantial building society is expected to need rescuing in this way. So it remains the case that the UK's building societies have weathered the recession better than our commercial banks.

(link here at: Robert Peston's ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blog - How Dumfermline fell)

can we then take a single word of Robert's blogs seriously.

A wise man admits their mistakes, and learns from them to become wiser.
A fool carries on regardless.

OK, Nationwide seems to be able to carry on without problem for now, but with Brittania being forced to merge with Co-op, and other problems across the sector, the statement that the rest of the building society sector is in pretty good shape seems (and remains until retracted) as if it were a distorted piece of incorrect propaganda.

A week ago we were being told that the worst is over for the financial sector. The West Brom is not large...but!

The fact is that the financial system is effectively bankrupt because of a combination of greed, stupidity,poor regulation and ultra low interest rates. They are all dead men walking! The only fix is to return to sound money (i.e. proper higher interest rates). This will flush out the problems and these can them be fixed. Doing nothing as we are now means no recovery!

West Brom is rescued but Northern Rock was bailed out.

Come on Robert were is all the sensationalist rubbish you spout gone.

Why aren't you reporting the liabilities of the bank, ignoring the fact it has more assets then dividing them between the amount of the people UK and then showing graphics of people walking with this amount floating above them. What about the black holes and the harping on about taxpayers money.

21#

"Brown gets blamed for everything....... I think you lot should look at history! Maggie changed this country far more, and caused so much more suffering"

It's early days

Bradford and Bingley,Bristol and West,Dunfermline,The Cheshire, The Derbyshire,The Principality, Norwich and Peterborough,The Portman, Britannia besides being Building Societies that have or are about to disapear, they all have 2 things in common. They had enourmous appetites for Sub Prime Lending, BTL and Commercial Lending and set up Specialist Lenders to dish this money out without any real thought - either under their own names or under names such as Platform, Astra, Nemo, TMW. If that wasnt bad enough they bought loans from Sub Prime Lenders such as GMAC and SPML (Lehman Brothers)in massive quantities It was driven by pure greed, and now they are reaping what they sowed

Mr Brown does not receive just the blame...but also the contempt and derision for his inadequate perfomance in setting up the Tripartite System and then crowing to the world about the Brilliant City. And then raping shareholders by claiming he was rescuing them. And now he wants to market his remodelled BSs etc. And take the kudos, and even the glory.....Oh what a brilliant Manager and Entrepreneur am 'I' ?

I do not/did not vote... but at the last Euro election many of my 'educated' friends either abstained or voted for the Greens or for UKIP. Among them some previously very close to Blair and Brown.

The PM has lost the respect of so many close to him. And so have his Parliamentary and Civil Service colleagues. Balls and Cooper and O'Donnell are amongst those discussed with unalloyed bile.

How dare this Gov't cling to Office ! Every month that will pass will add to the sadness of those who know our democracy has become all but meaningless.

There seems to be a a mood of optimism, this could be because people are fed up with the doom and gloom. However Sir Philip Green said on a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ programme recently that banks are not lending to business, and furthermore a Economics Nobel Prize winner said on HardTalk that there could be another stimulus package of $500 billion in the USA, on top of the fact that there are potentially a million more jobs losses yet to come in the UK, personally I don't think we're home and dry yet and there is indeed more doom and gloom to come, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.