Two of Britain's once respected banks stood on the precipice of collapse last year. Had they collapsed the UK's banking system would have ground to a halt (even cash dispensers would have ceased dispensing cash).
As such the Bank of England stepped in with an emergency loan of £62BN, to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS during October and November 2008.
Mervyn King, Governor of The Bank of England, revealed the secret loan during a parliamentary hearing today. The money was repaid in full by January 2009.
I wonder if, had the responsibility for issuing the loan rested with Brown, whether such a decision would have been made (given Brown's dithering and inability to make decisions)?
"Ironically", the shareholders of HBOS and Lloyds were not told about this (ie given the full picture of the shocking sate of the banks' finances), when they were offered shares in earlier rights issues by HBOS and LLoyds in January 2009.
Suffice to say, they may well have grounds for "complaint" against the boards of these two banks.
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