Darkest day for Scottish banking as the Bank of Scotland faces its end
 

FOR Scotland's oldest bank, it was the suddenness of its rout that stunned. That and the silence at the top. That and the invisibility of leadership. That and the short-selling frenzy that descended on HBOS shares yesterday, like vultures on a corpse.
This was the blackest day in Scottish banking. An appalling day of shock, confusion and disbelief.

Many this morning will still be aghast at the speed of the bank's share collapse. Anger and a reckoning will come later. Today, the fate of HBOS, the savings of its 22 million customers, the prospects for its 72,000 staff and the final reckoning for its 1.2 million hapless investors ? whose shares have been savaged ? rest on the merger with rival Lloyds TSB.

Yesterday, in conditions of near pandemonium, shares in HBOS had by far their worst day since the onset of the credit crisis. Monday and Tuesday were train-wreck enough ? the value of HBOS had plunged by £7 billion by Tuesday night. So there was a surge of relief when the shares opened firmer at the start of trading yesterday. It did not last long.

The shares opened at 200p, rose to 214p, then plunged to only 88p ? an astonishing collapse of 56 per cent in less than an hour. Then came reports of "advanced" merger talks with Lloyds TSB, at a price of 300p a share.

The shares rallied ? only to fall back again. Amid ever-growing confusion in the market, the mooted bid terms were now corrected ? to 200p a share.

Scotland:

Sales are down by about 50% in the past year; mortgage approvals are down by more than 70% suggesting that sales have further to fall; and last week estate agents reported that in the three months to August, some of them were selling fewer than one property per week.

The head of the Nationwide building society, Graham Beale, has said that house prices might end up falling by as much as 25% from their peak seen in Autumn 2007.'

I forgot - blame Bush !

Halifax is the bank that the most identity fraud attempts on me have gone through. I had like a two year battle with them as somebody was trying time and time again to open accounts using my address but with various names. My personal fave was 'Mrs. Data. Robot'. I don't even haven account with them but had applied for for a year or so before. This was right at the time that Watchdog had reported various banks - including them - throwing out applicant details in insecure manners. It took nearly two years for them to even talk to me in a non-hostile way about what was happening and they continually lied to me about trying to help.

It's kind of sad to see all these storied companies fail. Many of them have fascinating histories and have been through so much. Then POOF! All gone in a few weeks.

Not shocking at all