Business banking news review: week ending 29 Aug 2013
The Government is just full of good ideas lately it seems, but even as schemes are in the works to save the economy consumers are warned to beware.
The Financial Conduct Authority, the Government’s newest watchdog entity, recently came forward with such a warning about online banking of all things. Mobile banking in particular was cited as particularly dangerous, according to the FCA.
Whether you’re a victim of fraud or if you’ve got big fat sausage fingers and find it too fiddly to tap out figures on your smart phone, you’re in for a world of hurt if you put in incorrect details on those tiny little touch-sensitive screens, the FCA says. Moving funds late at night when you’re tired and can’t concentrate could be a large source of the problem as well, according to the regulator, though it does say that more research has to be done before it can announce definitively that using your smart phone whilst you’re nodding off in the small hours of the morning after a long day might lead to mistakes.
That’s nothing – I hear next month the FCA is going to research whether fire is actually hot. I mean let’s get serious here, of course it’s bloody dangerous to handle your financial matters when you’re exhausted and can’t see straight. Likewise you shouldn’t go about using those fiddly little screens if you’re putting in personal details into an online or mobile banking app. Is this just common sense or what?
Speaking of common sense or the lack thereof, did you hear that the Government will be letting the leash off banking institutions in regards to the amount of liquid investments they are required to keep in order to stave off another credit crisis? It’s true – the Bank of England will soon be permitting banks considered ‘safe’ to encourage mortgages and business loans by reducing liquidity buffers.
The Bank is convinced that an additional £90 billion in lending will flood the economy if it gives banks free rein in this way. This is bollocks if you ask me, as there’s no personal or business bank account provider out there right now that can truly be trusted with lowered levels of regulation in any way shape or form. I mean this is exactly the kind of permissiveness that got us into this blasted mess in the first place!
Well, the edicts have been passed down by the Government. We all know how competent it is and how it has the best interests of the common Brit in mind, don’t we?