Worrying the CBI
THE daftest contribution to the BCCI affair comes (but you guessed it) from the Confederation of British Industry. It wor- ries about the banking scene — but not about a major failure, or a spectacular fraud, or the risk to other banks or the banking system, or the pitiful sight of good businesses struggling to survive without their cheque-books. No, it fears a banking bonanza. High profits, it warns, will be inflated by high charges. True, there are no signs of a bonanza in the TSB's £150 million loss, or in the grim figures on the way from the Big Four, starting next week but the CBI's mind, once made up, is not to be confused with facts. Surely, though, to its member firms oppressed by their bank charges, the obvious solution presented itself? They could have moved their accounts from their greedy and stuffy old high street branches, to that nice newish bank — so obliging, so helpful, such good rates and competitive charges which, since a week last Friday, has had a notice in its window saying, 'Temporarily closed'.
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