October 04, 2013

FCA, if there are “high interest rules” should there not be “low interest rate rules” too?

Sir, I refer to your “High interest rules”, October 4.

When reading about the laudable efforts of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of trying to reign in the excesses of payday lenders, one can also wonder about when the FCA would tackle the other side of the coin; namely the absurd low interest government pays on its debt and which might even be the reason for why many savers might end up having to reach out for moneylenders.

Let us not ignore that besides awful money lenders who could break your kneecaps, there are also awful money borrowers too, even though these use more subtle methods. Like for instance the borrowing public sector, who have the regulators allowing the banks to lend to it holding no capital, while simultaneously requiring the banks to hold about 8 percent in capital when lending to any ordinary citizen.