Not sure if this thread will catch on, because no-one here seems to have much to say about individual british banks, but thought i would add this header to see if we could discuss dividend yields, exposure to sup-prime, good ones, bad ones, take-over targets, when the crisis will end? do you think they have learnt their lesson? I, for one, as a property developer have seen first hand how much stricter they have become with lending habits, struggling to get decent rates for re-mortgaging, basically they appear scared to lend to anyone.

hi peri

yes, i read it today.....hornby sounds like a politician rather than a banker.
the telegraph did a great page on him last week where even in 6 month period, hornby changes his views totally on actual figures.....maybe he will be next chancellor if he keeps this up.

hornby is in the wrong profession.
i was at local cricket club last week and hornby name seems to be getting talked about a lot up here.....and it aint good!!

finally, i went to hbos this week in local branch......the branch was empty when i was in for the few minutes i was there.....however, i counted amount of staff and all of them doing nothing.....10 of them......yes, ten people doing nothing!!!!

most are just wee girls at counter who obviously know nothing about banking either.......the banks need to streamline in times like this and get rid of 2 or 3 at least......also, several staff were talking/giggling away to each other......they are there to work and do banking....ITS NOT A SOCIAL CLUB. i also think they need to bring back the old days and pay staff what they could live on.....and i propose for anyone up to age of 30 anyway a salary of about 10,000 a year......12 maximum.

hbos need to get back to old fashioned banking.....and not the sales shop that halifax has turned it into

Hot news..................
General Electrics sub prime lending divisions in the UK have just announced they are withdrawing all products.
These may well be replaced, but there has not yet been an announcement about this, and the unusual point is that they normally give notice of withdrawal and that a new product line up will be available immediately after. This time they have given no such notice or undertaking.
As I say it may be they have merely changed the way they announce, but I am not confident. This is just about the last of the 90%+ sub prime lenders.
Hoping it is just a rate change or tweak of criteria, but I am not at all confident. That could be a big blow to the lending and housing markets because those using these lenders will now have nowhere left to go, whereas when a large volume high street lender changes, people can just go elsewhere.
Will update when I know their next move, which will probably be tomorrow.

This is turning into a bloodbath.

One possible bright spot over the weekend is that some mega rich bloke is looking at buying whats left of London Scottish.
London Scottish were a balance sheet sub prime lender, rather than the leveraged type. If this guy is seriously looking, then in effect he is looking to lend his own money in the subprime mortgage arena, and he didn't get mega rich by throwing his money away on dead ducks.......................

I have been trying to calculate at what stage we are at in this banking crisis (not a easy task) I know the values for the American banks before and after the Bank crisies of the early nineties, I haven't the data for UK banks for the 90s but would guess they could have been alike. You will see below I have compared the figures with RBS, BARC and LLOY.

US Banks 50% cheaper 9 months into crises (1991/2)
RBS,BARC & LLOY 55% cheaper 11 months into crises

US Banks from PE of 4.1% to 8.8%
RBS,BARC & LLOY from PE of 5.6% to 11.1%

US Banks from P/BV of 1.6 to 0.9
RBS,BARC & LLOY from P/BV of 2.28 to 1.01* = My best guess?

I think the comparisons are interesting, because the UK banks have now fallen further than the US banks in the early 90s crisis. This time I feel the crisis is more serious, but I'm sure we will look back at some great opportunities.

IF banks sp are that good then seize the day!

seize the day, in small instalments at least.

Like everyone else I have no idea where the bottom is, but I will average down slowly from now.

Uncomfirmed......

The reason for General Electric pulling all products from sale today and not announcing anything about replacements is that (according to an acquiantance) GE money and GE Home Lending are about to be taken over by Banco Santander (ie Abbey).

If I can get any confirmation (or anyone else can corroborate this) I will post on here.

damn spanish dagos.......the spanish....like the germans over last decade.....are buying more of british companies.......BAA, scottish power, abbey all being bought over by spanish dagos.
i used to work with english guy who didnt like germans....yet he worked for a german company and drove german car and german bike.

is anything british these days?

answers on a postcard pls to:

mr. g. (prudence) (Stalin) brown
10 downing street
london

Wow,amazing charts for a particular sector when linked like that,why has HSBC appeared to buck the trend? Sorry,don't follow the banks but will do in future,good thread.

i imagine cos HSBC ALTHOUGH in uk, are also mainly in asia etc.

a lot of banks are mainly uk based although some like barclays have a big base in usa.

you need to do some research on heads of bank right now banjo as 1 or 2 of banks are run by numpties with no banking experience.......yes, NO BANKING EXPERIENCE. i actually doubt whether they would be decent businessmen but certainly 1 or 2 are in the wrong profession.

My prediction on the 8 th March have been correct.

Been seeking confirmation of the GE Money news.
1) The Banco Santander link appears true, but only for the car loan / credit card part of GE
2) The 2 secured lending divisions of GE are coming back with new rates, however my source was vary veiled with reerence to criteria changes
3) He thinks the link is co-incidental to the deal pulling, but is not totally sure.

The only thing certain is that they will continue with sub prime secured lending, which is a relief, as long as criteria does not change too much. If it does, that really does signal huge problems for the housing market and, by extension, the wider economy, though Banco Santander must have some faith to chase the car loan and credit card parts of the business.

Phew............
Panic over. GE are back in and the rate changes are minute, and the criteria remains the same.

Interesting mumblings from an informed source at RBS.

They envisage no more great changes to rates or criteria until early 2009, when they believe the crisis will be over.
They position their rates to ensure service standards are met, keeping them "mid table" to ensure they get business, without being snowed under. In March they were market leading and were taking 3 weeks just to open the mail in the mortgage section.
They believe markets will normalise when "who owes what to whom in America" is sorted out. This is not banks owing the money, but large investors and pension funds. Once their balance sheets are known, they will start to make money available again on the wholesale debt markets.
They are quite bullish (in private) over the fate of the financial services sector in 2009, though admit that the weak will have gone by then.

More from the ft, this time written by James Mackintosh giving details about banks trying to offload Asset Backed Securities at large discounts and giving loans to enable the transfer to go ahead. ie we will let you have these loans incl. subprimes at a 31% discount and will lend you a goodly portion of the remaining 69%. This way the bank gets it off the Balance sheet , sort of , as the article sez people are clearly trying to window dress their accounts.I was interested to see from hewitalan6 post above that there is prospect of normality returning next year perhaps, however I recall Barclays and RBS being summoned to the Fed as their subsidiaries maked them among the top 7 US banks and they had to explain their involvement thro those subsidiaries in the sub prime and other loan markets.maybe I have missed something in the past several months but I have this recurring thought that there is a pile of unexplained toxicity about to appear! maybe ABN Ambro has a finger in the pie?I am not a holder btw, here is the article:tfolio buyers

By James Mackintosh

Published: June 25 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 25 2008 03:00

Commercial banks are offering finance to tempt bidders for multi-billion dollar portfolios of asset-backed securities, in an effort to release much-needed capital.

Hedge funds say banks - particularly European banks - have been hawking ABS portfolios since UBS gave BlackRock an $11.25bn loan to help the fund manager buy a $15bn mortgage portfolio from the Swiss bank last month.

The offer by banks to lend buyers a large chunk of the money to buy a portfolio underlines how desperate executives are to dump mortgage-backed securities.

Banks have also been trying to move ABS portfolios off the balance sheet by putting them into structures in which they can sell a hedge fund the first loss portion, giving the bank additional protection against credit problems in the securities - a structure very similar to offering a loan.

Queen's Walk, a London-listed vehicle run by Cheyne Capital, the $11bn hedge fund, said last week that triple A rated securities repackaged by banks were offering returns of "approximately 20 per cent".

Stuart Fiertz, co-founder of Cheyne, said: "We are working on trades where banks are deconsolidating pools of assets and providing leverage on them".

The moves mirror the financing packages made widely available for buyers of leveraged loans this year as banks raced to unload crippling exposure to loans to private equity buy-outs.

However, some hedge funds remain sceptical about the offer of finance bundled with a sale, fearing the bank would bump up the price of the assets to offset the cost of the loan.

One large London hedge fund manager said: "If someone is offering you leverage, it obviously comes with a cost".

Many ABS securities have fallen sharply in value, with those linked to subprime mortgages leading a fall in everything housing-related. For example, UBS sold a portfolio to BlackRock at a 31 per cent discount to its $22bn face value.

One hedge fund trader estimated that $50bn of ABS securities, mostly mortgages, could be moved off balance sheets by banks.

He said: "There are people clearly trying to window dress [their accounts]".

Bankers argue that bringing in a hedge fund or other buyer reduces the risk to a bank, even if significant finance is offered, because the new investor provides an equity cushion that must be lost before the bank suffers.

Mr Fiertz said portfolios being offered by banks were in the $2bn-$4bn range, with $1bn slices being sold.

One US hedge fund manager said banks had been given breathing space by the central bank extension of lending facilities, but European and US banks had balance sheets "littered with this stuff". "It is a complicated mess," he added.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Am i right in thinking that HBOS nil paid shares are now trading wef 0800 today and do they have an epic code?
are they in minus figures and if so do you get them for free/nominal fee(plus costs)?
Alex

More interesting mumblings from the big banks.............

Quote; "We are not frightened of lending money, but until the balance sheet is confirmed in the light of writedowns, we need to control exactly how much we lend. The easy way to do this is to try and price our way out of the market."

This was in response to questioning on dual pricing - the same product being cheaper in branch than through intermediaries or on-line application.
Its all about control. The banks do not want to write loans and mortgages in branch - it is too expensive. They want business from the intermediary network, which is cheaper for them, but if the product is market leading, they get too many applications they must honour.

The other comments were an expectation that as much as 50% of brokerages will go to the wall, and when better times roll, fewer players will be sharing a slightly smaller cake, but those left will be fitter and more diversified.
When this is coupled with the immense difficulty in starting any new brokerage (The FSA ban all forms of prospecting for clients) one can see a consolidation in the industry, leading to a few big players.
Now BNH are taken over by Towergate, I am struggling to see who is left.
Of the big networks, Charcol are reportedly struggling and most of the rest are privately or mutually owned (such as Pink - owned by Skipton B Soc).
One or two have been aimed at going public for some time (such as Mortgage Times) and these are the ones I will be keeping an eye on.
As a footnote, at least 2 sub prime lenders have diversified to the point where they no longer lend, but take deposits instead!!
1 is offering rates as high as 9% on instant access deposit accounts!
The brokers who use these routes and offer extras such as insurance and debt consolidation are the ones who will weather the storm.

Bradford and Bingley may go to sub 55p next week (see BB. thread)

do we have an epic for trading HBOS nil paid rights?