Time for No-frills Banking?
Overbloated rewards, periodic bankruptcies, giant inefficiencies, always ready to ask for Governmental handouts…that’s the characteristics shared by national airlines, and an unseemingly large number of banks.
When will anybody take the chance to build a no-frills bank?
Perhaps one or two of the super-rich Sovereign Funds or Oil Magnates will give it a try. They do have the money, after all…and they have just seen lots of it getting burned by professional bankers.
Maurizio - Omnologos 
> When will anybody take the chance to build a no-frills bank?
Such a bank would have to charge maintenance and operations fees, especially if it’s going to give up fractional banking (e.g., by investing deposits in short-term government bonds rather than in more profitable, but dangerous, long-term loans to private borrowers). Also, it wouldn’t make much profit for its shareholders, which is why most UK building societies chose to de-mutualize and become regular banks.
Anyway, aren’t there in UK entities equivalent to the “Credit Unions” in the US?
Enzo Michelangeli
2008/Oct/16 at 01:41:10