UK banks to be investigated

Further to the announcement of an investigation into RBS and their activities before the bailout, the UK financial watchdog, the Financial Services Authority is now recruiting audit firms to carry out investigations of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and HBOS Group PLC.
These, and other major financial houses are now under the control of the UK government and taxpayers.
The authorities would dearly like to find some scapegoat reason to make sense of the financial mess and hopefully draw some fire away from themselves. Bankers should now be nervous especially Sir Fred Goodwin, as he can certainly expect no favours from any reports that might be forthcoming from this investigation.
The banks are by no means out of the woods yet, and although it seems apparent that the major failures in the financial houses are over, the economy itself has yet to show any signs of hope. Spending is still on the decline as are house prices, and the rise of negative equity now has close to a million UK home owners with a net zero (or less) equity in their property. One slightly encouraging sign was the fact that the Bank of England declined the opportunity to drop bank base rate last week, although that is small comfort when there is only 0.5% left to play with...

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