December 15th, 2012 In his testimony to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards taken, taken in private in his Dumbartonshire bungalow on November 27th, the former HBOS corporate chief executive Peter Cummings railed against the FSA and criticised his boardroom colleagues but seemed to be as much in denial as ever. There was no contrition, no [...]
December 1st, 2012 In a comment piece in Saturday’s Times, financial editor Patrick Hosking gave ten reasons why the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards must show absolutely no mercy to the former HBOS chief executive James Crosby when he appears before it at 3.30pm on Monday afternoon. This is no time for faux deference, taking mendacious spin at face value, letting [...]
November 26th, 2012 (updated November 27th 2012) [Note: if the video of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards' cross-examination of Sir Charles Dunstone and Sir Ron Garrick starts to play, you need to scroll down to the bottom of this blog post to pause or mute it] It is not often that I am gob-smacked [...]
November 19th, 2012 My review of Ray Perman’s Hubris: How HBOS Wrecked the Best Bank in Britain was published in the Scottish Review of Books at the weekend. The full review — which is in fact more of an essay about how a small group of misguided people trashed Scotland’s banking sector and squandered three [...]
September 17th, 2012 (Updated 11.25am) (edited Dec 16th 2012) Studiously ignoring the roles of “establishment” figures like Sir James Crosby and Lord Stevenson in the demise of disastrous Edinburgh-based bank HBOS, the Financial Services Authority is seeking to heap all the ordure on the less establishment Peter Cummings. Now I am not suggesting that Cummings is [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: September 16th, 2012 High profile figures say banker Peter Cummings has been made a scapegoat (Note: This is a longer version of an article published as the lead business story in the Sunday Herald on September 16th, 2012) Jim McColl, Scotland’s highest-profile business figure, has added his weight [...]
September 12th, 2012 (updated 9.45am September 13th) Here’s a statement issued this afternoon by the former HBOS director Peter Cummings, in the wake of today’s 92-page Final Notice from the FSA. For once, I agree with some of what Cummings says, especially about the FSA’s failure to bring other HBOS board directors — including its former chief [...]
February 27th, 2010 (updated June 22nd, 2012) HBOS’s entrance on The Mound; Image: The We Lessons must be learnt from the short and calamitous history of HBOS, the bank which effectively went bust in September 2008, writes Ian Fraser (Note: This article was first posted under the headline “HBOS: When did the rot set in? [...]
Editorial note: June 22nd, 2012 A revised and updated version of this blog is now available via the following link:- The Worst Bank in the World? HBOS’s Calamitous Seven Year Life
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: February 26th, 2012 Results released last Friday showed a sea of red ink engulfing the state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group. Trumpeted at the time of its September 2008 formation as the “bank for Britain”, the 41%-taxpayer owned business unveiled annual losses of £3.5 billion for 2011, nearly double those [...]