Banks Cash In On Credit Crunch By Increasing Overdraft Charges
The interest rates on overdraft charges have been pushed up in the last year by banks who are seemingly trying to cash in on the credit crunch. They have also been handing out credit card cheques that are privy to astronomical interest rates.
It is terrible to think that financial institutions are doing nothing more than cashing in on the nationwide misery that is the credit crunch.
It all seemed fantastic a couple of weeks ago when the bank of England chopped the base interest rate by a generous 2.75 points but this means nothing to people who have been shocked when facing massive charges in relation to their overdraft fees.
Certain financial institutions have been adding as much as three per cent onto their overdraft interest rates.
And some people are really unfortunate by way of doing nothing wrong than being customers of Clydesdale bank and Yorkshire bank who have put some customers charges up to as much as seventeen per cent.
If it is thought about in a logical fashion by even the most stretched of minds then it is apparent that the banks are looking at the average person who has to pay more for essentials such as petrol (for most), food, and energy. They are then making a calculated and correct assumption that people at the end of the month when they are feeling the dwindle of the monthly budget will have no other choice than to use their overdraft.
This overdraft then becomes subject to a higher lending fee which means that the next month when the same thing happens again because it is impossible to budget, the person will have to borrow more money. Their overdraft becomes bigger and the interest percentage increases further. Suddenly the bread winner is found asphyxiated or self immolated and it is all a result of the reliving of the Wall Street Crash.
It is less than great to think that the public has to suffer because of things like the banks making bad investments. It is less than great to think that the average family has to put their children to bed fully clothed and replete with shoes because the cannot afford to have the heating on even intermittently and they do not want to awake in their morning to find their child blue and rigor-mortified. It is less than great to think that the banks are using helpless people already in a hand-to-mouth situation to generate income.
It is as though the banks have looked at the broom of the system and pin-pointed the best way to make money without turning around and thinking ‘Hang on, if we do that then the people that are struggling the most will be affected - it can only lead to starvation, hypothermia, or suicide.’
If the banks were viewed from an anthropomorphic viewpoint then they would be sharks. The consumer a hapless child (non-anthropomorphic, obviously) already too far out and at risk of drowning. That is basically to say that people who are already vulnerable are falling prey to a gargantuan predator replete with teeth made from detestable cash siphons.
Now for some figures that show a person with a £500 pounds sterling overdraft rate will pay £85 pounds sterling in interest a year if the rate is seventeen per cent. But if there is an increase of two points then this is going to increase by £10 pounds sterling.
There are certain financial institutions that have implemented a two point increase and they deserve to be named and shamed. Namely they are as follows; Smile(irony); Nationwide; First Direct; Co-op; Barclays; Abbey.
These institutions seems somewhat lenient when compared with the aforementioned Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks who have increased their rates by a sum no less than 7.31 points so they now stand at a lofty 16.95 per cent
The fact that a great deal of people are relying on extortionate credit card cheques in order to survive is a signal that the banks will only be happy when they have pushed customers to the financial edge of a world that they have made flat (depression terminology) and are dangling them over the edge by their arm using a tourniquet and injecting them with a hypodermic filled with a lethal dose of economic ennui cut with fiscal dystopia. This is metaphorical but pretty astute as it is applicable to no less than 500,000 people and counting that have currently had to resort to this draconian measure.
The credit card cheques are, to sum up in terms of the desperation that somebody has to be in to use them, subject to interest fees of more than twenty per cent. This means that the £3.6 billion pounds sterling that has been spent using these cheques in the past year, has generated £571 million pounds sterling of profit for the banks by way of interest.
It is likely that family upon family upon family are going to look at their children a month or so prior to chrismas, and think about how much happier they would be to have; Tonka; DS; Bratz. All they can afford is half a stocking full of fruit and Pound Stretcher. What is a loving bread winner meant to do? A prediction of post Christmas disaster and a year long uphill struggle for many is the crux of it and something needs to be done quickly before hara-kiri becomes the only logical choice for some otherwise happy people.