Banking: thousands of customers switch their accounts out of the big five

Building societies, credit unions and co-operatives benefit as anger over scandals turns to action

FULL STORY HERE

The Co-operative bank has seen the number of people switching to its current accounts jump by 43% over the past year. Photograph: Ian Dagnall/Alamy

Consumers are deserting major high-street banks in unprecedented numbers after a slew of revelations about unethical behaviour, according to data from the Move Your Money campaign.

Building societies, credit unions and co-operatives have all reported a sharp rise in new business over the past 12 months as the reputation of the major banks has taken a hammering.

Laura Willoughby, Move Your Money’s chief executive, said: “Anger with the banks is turning into action. This year British banks have been exposed for exploiting their customers, starving the economy of credit and flouting the law.”

Credit unions – small, usually locally based savings groups – have attracted almost 20,000 new accounts in the past six months, according to Move Your Money, while ethical banks Triodos, Ecology and the Charity Bank have all reported a jump in customers.

Building societies saw 78,000 customers sign up for savings accounts in the third quarter alone after Barclays was implicated in the Libor-fixing scandal, which has spread to engulf several other banks.

“Customers are clearly far more interested now in the way financial services companies are run,” said a spokeswoman for the Building Societies Association. “Putting that into the mix alongside interest rates and service has been positive for mutuals like building societies.”

The Co-operative bank, which will treble the size of its network next year when it takes over 632 Lloyds branches, has seen the number of people switching to its current accounts jump by 43% over the past year.

Move Your Money urges savers to shift their accounts from the so-called big five – Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS – to ethical or mutually owned alternatives.

The government has sought to boost competition in the banking market as a way of improving the performance of the big players. Business secretary Vince Cable said: “One of the biggest things is competition: getting new banks in to challenge the others.”

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP chairing the parliamentary commission on banking standards, said last week: “The latest revelations of collusion, corruption and market-rigging beggar belief”.

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Poisoned Paradise Part 4

Poisoned Paradise Part 4

Playa Vista

Click here to view Part 4

Dateline: Playa Vista

The huge development of Playa Vista was built over the old Los Angeles river bed, now known as Ballona Creek.  It is also built over an area of oil and gas fields.  The area is so dangerous with methane and deadly chemicals from oil and gas that environmental studies pronounced that nothing should ever be built there.  That didn’t stop Goldman Sachs from financing developers to build this massive site, literally a small city.  According to our whistle blower, no environmental impact report was ever filed, and despite 10 years of litigation and a half million dollars in attorneys fees, the courts looked the other way and allowed the project to be built.  The City of Los Angeles, ignoring its responsibilities, allowed the project to be built because it has greatly benefited (as has the County) from the millions of dollars of property tax revenue pouring in.  Forget the dangers to public health, the environment, the aquifers, or anything else, the greed of the County and City for tax revenue over-shadows the lives of those who will get sick and die.  The developers and financiers have reaped a fortune on Playa Vista and are continuing to build ever more condos on the site to this very day.  The American Indians, whose burial grounds were torn up during this building frenzy, have allegedly said there is a curse on the site.  The money made by developers, the City, the County, and the financiers, could be called “blood money” if predicted death and destruction follows. Follow this incredible story of greed and reckless development in Part 4 of Poisoned Paradise.

Iceland’s Hörður Torfason – How to Beat the Banksters

LINK HERE TO – Iceland’s Hörður Torfason – How to Beat the Banksters

Alex Pietrowski, Staff Writer
Waking Times

The tiny Nordic European island country of iceland is presently experiencing one of the greatest economic comebacks of all time. After the privatization of the banking sector completed in 200o, the economy was thrown into a tailspin when over a five year period, private bankers borrowed 120 billion dollars (10 times the size of Iceland’s economy). A huge economic bubble was created, causing house prices to double, and making a small percentage of Iceland’s population rich enough to buy up overseas investments, mansions, yachts, and private jets, while leaving an absolutely un-payable debt for all Icelanders. Iceland was facing national bankruptcy.

In response to the failed banking system, in October 2008, Iceland’s revolution against this financial tyranny began, rather casually in the street, in front of the Icelandic general assembly.

In the duration of five months, the main bank of Iceland was nationalized, government officials were forced to resign, the old government was liquidated, and a new government was put in its place. By March 2010, Iceland’s people voted to deny payment of the 3,500 million Euro debt created by the bankers, and about 200 high-level executives and bankers responsible for the economic crisis in the country were either arrested or were facing criminal charges.

In February 2011, a new constitutional assembly settled in to rewrite the tiny nation’s constitution, which aimed to avoid entrapment by debt-based currency foreign loans. In 2012, Iceland’s economy is expected to outgrow the Euro and the average for the developed world, as estimated by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

…snip

Holmes Father Was Financial Big Shot

In case you missed the article on Robert Holmes/Whistleblower

Shocking details have emerged over the weekend regarding the alleged Colorado Batman shooter James Holmes.

Holmes’ father, Robert Holmes, reportedly is a senior lead analyst with FICO, and was scheduled to testify as a whistle-blower in the coming weeks regarding the LIBOR scandal, was was reportedly ready to NAME BIG NAMES involved in the massive global fraud as well as provide evidence to the Senate Banking Committee linking the high level executives to their crimes!

Robert Holmes, the shooting suspect’s father, is a senior lead scientist with FICO, the American credit score company. He was scheduled to testify in the next few weeks before a US Senate panel that is investigating the largest bank fraud scandal in world history. This banking fraud threatens to destabilize and destroy the Western banking system.

Robert Holmes not only uncovered the true intent of the massive LIBOR banking fraud, but his “predictive algorithm model” also traced the trillions of “hidden”dollars to the exact bank accounts of the elite classes who stole it. In other words, Robert Holmes could NAME NAMES!

Those names WOULD AWAKEN THE WORLD to the depth of government and corporate corruption which could include members of Congress, Wall Street, Federal Reserve and EU executives and could even include US Presidential candidates and the British Royal family.

The motives for the massacre are:

1) To silence whistle-blower Robert Holmes whose son is now facing a possible death sentence

2) To influence the upcoming vote on the UN Global Small Arms Treaty which could result in gun confiscation and disarming world citizens. The UN treaty could override national sovereignty and give a license to federal governments to assert preemptive gun control powers over state regulatory powers.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/breaking-batman-shooters-father-was-scheduled-to-testify-as-whistle-blower-to-senate-over-libor-scandal/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gIVs_g88M

 

http://beforeitsnews.com/

Are Shootings Connected To Financial Scandals?

Weird coincidence?  Check this out:

BREAKING NEWS: CT School Shooter Killer Link To LIBOR SCANDAL?

The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial. The father of Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO. Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested.

http://www.rumormillnews.com

Poisoned Paradise Part 3

Dateline: Marina del Rel

The Gas and Oil Is Under Your Feet

Click here to watch the youtube video, Part 3

The unfolding story of the deadly gas underneath Marina del Rey and Playa Vista as our Whistle-Blower, Mr. “X” explains how the War Department initiated storage of massive amounts of natural gas in a huge underground “cavern” during WW2.  They turned it over to the Southern California Gas Company after the war.  The bad news?  The entire area is punctured with hundreds of old oil wells.  The “safe” storage in this geologic formation is leaking, and no one is pressing the Gas Company to find out how much leakage there is, AND where it is going.  Part Three of this horrific story, with much more to come.

 

HSBC 60 TRILLION Money Laundering in 2010!!!

This just in from Richard Becker at Liberation News…

HSBC: Too big to indict

Money-laundering to the tune of $60 trillion in 2010

By Richard Becker

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Get a copy of “The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks” by Richard Becker

For a real jaw dropper, the lead paragraph of a Dec. 10 New York Times article would be hard to beat:

“State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.”

So, there it is: The big banks, no matter how blatant their crimes, must be protected. They and their executives are free to steal, defraud and loot without fear of facing prison time.

Despite massive evidence that HSBC had been operating as a criminal enterprise, the Department of “Justice” opted for another slap-on-the-wrist fine.

Not that this is anything really new. Since their wild and often fraudulent schemes led to the bank crash and public bailout in 2008—and helped trigger the “Great Recession”—not one Wall Street bank executive has faced criminal prosecution for their crimes.

In lieu of any of their present or former executives being prosecuted, HSBC has admitted its guilt and agreed to pay $1.9 billion. That might sound like a lot of money but consider that the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency found that HSBC had $60 trillion in potentially illegal transactions in 2010.

To read more click here:  Liberation News

Paradise Has Been Poisoned By Deadly Chemicals

New Video Series Exposing the Poisoning of Los Angeles By Leaking Oil and Gas Fields.

A new video series is exposing the poisoning of the people of Los Angeles by leaking oil and gas fields.  The Los Angeles basin is covered with oil fields.  Most of these fields date back to the early part of the 20th century when Los Angeles had the richest oil fields on earth.  Many of these oil fields are still being pumped to this day, and some are now being “fracked”.  For over a hundred years dangerous, life-threatening chemicals have been leaking out.  There is no count to the number of people who have died horrible deaths from cancer due to these leaking fields.  And then there is the explosion factor, with parts of the City literally exploding without notice, killing people instantly, including in recent times a brave fireman.  This series is premiering on www.SouthlandNewsBureau.  Click below to see Part 1.

Poisoned Paradise Part 2

Dateline: Los Angeles

Part 2 of the series Poisoned Paradise.  Maps and information on where the dangerous oil and gas fields are, in other words, where NOT to live.  Leaking oil and gas under Beverly Hills High School.  More background information on oil and gas wells and how they leak and sometimes explode without warning.

If you live in Los Angeles you will have heard of names like Beverly Hills High School, Belmont Learning Center, the La Brea Tar Pits, Marina del Rey and Baldwin Hills.  What do they all have in common?  Deadly leakage of gas and oil coming from abandoned oil fields as well as leakage from other situations.  Follow the trail with our Whistle-Blower as he narrates the gripping story that is still unfolding in this exclusive series of reports.

Click here to watch Part 2