No retirement job
THIS is the familiar stage in the cycle when the banks find out the mistakes that they made when everything looked easy and they thought their systems were foolproof. Barclays, assiduous these days at pricing and managing risk, has still contrived to blow £250 million in Russia. In banking, such times as these sort out the men from the lads, and Sir Brian Pitman of Lloyds TSB says that the gap between the two is getting wider. Banking is changing, branch- es are optional, anybody from the Pm to Safeway can join in, so (of course) could invaders from America or Europe, and one day somebody will start a price war and shoot the losers' margins to shreds. Sir David left Lloyd's in his debt, an unusual achievement and one that I saluted, and I wish him well as Nat West's chairman. The truth is, though, that this is not a retirement job.
Previous page
