The Money Thread - Public Bank ownership expands (RBS@70%)
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Neo Cortex
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Mr Thropwimp
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Hexx
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The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 1.5%, the lowest level in its 315-year history, as it continues efforts to aid an economic recovery.
The half percentage point reduction brings interest rates below 2% for the first time since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.
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Skarjo
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Fazarelli
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Hexx
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Public stake in RBS to increase
Royal Bank of Scotland will convert the £5bn of preference shares it has sold to the Treasury into ordinary shares, the BBC's Robert Peston has learned.
This will take the bank a step closer to full nationalisation, giving taxpayers a 70% stake - up from 58%.
The move would stop RBS having to pay the 12% fixed dividend that preference shares attract - worth £600m per year - and could allow it to increase lending.
The Treasury is proposing a similar move with the merged Lloyds TSB/HBOS.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said: "In theory, if the two banks didn't have to pay this dividend, they could lend £27bn more every year."
The government invested in both types of shares in RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS as part of its £37bn bail-out last October.
But the banks have complained that the commitment to pay such a large dividend, regardless of their profit levels, was prohibitive.
The Treasury could help by converting its shares in the new Lloyds Banking Group - which begins trading on Monday after the merger - to take its stake past 50%.
This would remove an annual dividend commitment of £480. However, Lloyds is said to be unhappy about the government gaining majority control.
Gordy's finally answer the criticism that everyone had about the bank scheme for months - why should the banks lend at 6%, when the government was lending to them at 12%
Brown to announce another bank bail-out
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he will announce another banks rescue package on Monday again aimed at encouraging them to restart lending .
Speaking in Egypt, at a summit on the Gaza crisis, Mr Brown said he hoped the move would make it easier for firms and households to obtain credit.
What the government still wanted was to get "the resumption of lending" he added.
A raft of measures is thought to include a bank insurance scheme to cover banks against future bad loans.
Confidence building
Mr Brown said: "We know that the essential problem that has been held back by what has been happening internationally over the last few months is the resumption of lending and the expansion of lending.
"You will see tomorrow there are measures taken that will ensure that banks and non-bank institutions are able to resume lending or expand lending and in some cases to start lending.which the earlier measures we aimed to do this haven't achieved"
The new state-controlled insurance company would provide cover in the event of bank customers defaulting on their loans.
It would allow banks to pay a fee to have their bad loans underwritten by the taxpayer up to a certain level.
John McFall MP, the Labour chairman of the Commons treasury committee, said the government had little alternative to a new rescue plan.
"We have got to go back again with a bigger sum because, quite frankly, the banks in my opinion haven't been honest enough about the toxic assets on their books."
BBC business editor Robert Peston says the moves are designed to avert a further loss of confidence ahead of gloomy results expected from the big banks.
"It'll be designed to give banks and their investors a bit more certainty about the losses they'd face as the recession undermines the ability of many borrowers to repay their debts.
"We as taxpayers will be insuring some of the bad loans made by our biggest banks, to limit their future losses from their reckless lending," he said.
Share swaps
The Treasury is also said to be proposing a swap of preference shares it took in RBS and HBOS for ordinary shares, effectively freeing-up cash for the banks concerned.
Last October the government bought both types of shares in RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS as part of its £37bn bail-out.
These government-owned preference shares mean the banks concerned are committed to paying out a dividend on them.
BBC business correspondent Joe Lynam said: "The banks have long complained that the fees, or coupons, attached to the preference shares they sold to the Treasury, were too high at over £1bn every year.
If the swap is agreed, it could increase the government's stake in RBS to 70%, and in the Lloyds Banking Group to over 50%.
However Lloyds, which begins trading on Monday as Lloyds Banking Group after the merger of HBOS and Lloyds TSB, is said to be unhappy about ceding majority control to the government.
"I think we are now inexorably heading towards taking over the balance sheets of the big beasts," said Justin Urquhart Stewart, of Seven Investment Management.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "We do need to establish first of all what happened to the £37bn worth of taxpayers' money that's already gone into the banking system."
Ministers hope their measures will persuade banks to start lending again. However, Angela Knight of the British Bankers' Association, said many problems were stopping the banks from doing that.
"Additional capital rules, statements by governments, problems around the world - which are not helping us, us being all the major banks in the UK, who are wanting to lend more to pick up that capacity that's gone away out of the UK market."
(Red bits mine - I got bored after a bit though
)That's what the average voter will see. The banks were given £30billion to lend before, why should they get another X billion to get them to lend? Especially as other firms go bust left/right/center
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Rightey
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I just read this as the monkey thread, disappointed/10 
Pelloki on ghosts wrote:Just start masturbating furiously. That'll make them go away.
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Rightey
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Thanks.
Pelloki on ghosts wrote:Just start masturbating furiously. That'll make them go away.
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Skarjo
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Mr Thropwimp
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