Through economies of scale, through having large Capital arms to make money. If you look at the revenue streams for the major banks, they don't make much from their retail arms. It's immaterial to the fact that by dropping fees they'll drop more revenue than they gain.Originally Posted by Aindriu
The three lead stories on RTÉ1 news tonight were all about Ulster Bank:
- still several days behind on transactions
- it's emerging tonight that some customers have been double charged
- RTÉ is also highlighting how UB now has the highest SVR of all the mortgage providers.
Has "Pravda" been told to go postal on UB to encourage a move by its customers into the bailed out banks, thereby reducing their need for more fiscal welfare in a year or two?
I'm feeling slightly gratified (in a grim way) to see the suspicions I expressed in the original post to be completely confirmed in the article below.
Note that Duffy offers no economic reason for his stance. There's no suggestion that targetting UB customers would have been non-profitable.
Dismantling the ivory tower at AIB - The Irish Times - Fri, Jul 13, 2012
The computer crash at Ulster Bank has been “a wake-up call” for everyone in banking to check their own computer systems, he adds.
AIB has come to Ulster Bank’s rescue by processing transactions for its big corporate customers over the past three weeks since the IT problem crashed the UK-owned bank’s processing system.
Duffy says that AIB’s distressed position meant its own technology systems had been checked independently by outside consultants at the end of last year.
“The real issue is not what can go wrong it’s what can you fix when it goes wrong. As management, your most responsible answer is that you can answer that question because the other question is an imponderable.”
He has ordered that under no circumstances should AIB staff solicit Ulster Bank customers who may be keen to move banks as a result of the technical crash.
“I have been in many crashes and the rule of thumb is that you never take advantage of somebody else’s distress because you are only inviting the same thing at some date in the future.”
I read that article yesterday and thought of this thread.
I'd have to agree with that to some extent, but would extend it out to a lot of non-US companies - IT systems, and data, are often not seen as strategic advantages.
I'm thinking of penning a strongly worded email to Depity Shane Ross. He has this sort of stuff for breakfast, dinner and supper.
Our dear bailed out banks have no problems going cap (concealing a TBTF gun) in hand to Irish tax-payers. Yet, when an opportunity comes biting them on the nose, they turn down a huge chance to wean themselves off corporate welfare. If it was a dole recipient, they'd be threatened with being cut off. But then, the ordinary Joe and Josephine soaps aren't too big too fail.
To be fair, that last point offers another way of looking at things - if you go back to your own comments on the banks' systems, which are mainframe code written a generation ago, they know that their own vulnerability will surface sooner or later as a crash, and it may be a worse one. If you don't use the occasion to poach customers, and help out instead, you can expect the same, and vice-versa.
On balance, is that better for customers? I would say so - presumably people who are with Ulster would prefer to remain with Ulster, and so would prefer AIB to help Ulster sort out or ameliorate the problem than not do so in order to capitalise on Ulster's troubles.
any move to take advantage of UBs misfortune may run foul of competition laws which i believe are more stringent in financial sector than say, airlines (in case you were thinking of a bit of whataboutery)...
But this would be business won fair and square, not as a result of a hostile boardroom takeover.
Our so called banks were Irish Named, with substantial foreign ownership. Their real weakness was that they held the deposits of Irish Residents
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