Banking Hypocrisy!

Recently, one of our major banks has come out with a series of commercials equating good citizenship and banking. The concept is that our deposits are lent out in turn to proving mortgages, business and individual loans and in return the bank pays us interest on our deposits. That sounds like an equitable arrangement but it is in fact little more than a public relations ploy.

Credit and therefore loans is tight. Most small businesses will tell you that operating credit is not so easy to come by. Mortgages and consumer loans are harder to get and the interest paid to depositors is negligible if anything at all.

The reality is that banks are making most of their profits from trading in the stock and financial markets. These billion dollar profits benefit the banks and their stockholders. The depositors, upon whom the bank's financial foundation supposedly rests, get little or nothing from these massive profits. Do the depositors not deserve a fair share?

True citizenship implies equitable treatment. I don't see this equity in the bank's treatment of it's depositors and until this happens all the commercials about good banking being good citizenship are nothing more the a PR smoke screen.