Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Outlook Speaking of the cost of doing business, Barclays has announced that it will pay £7 a month to its loyal current account customers from next week. It’s quite a U-turn. Not long ago both Barclays’ chief executive, Antony Jenkins, and its chairman, Sir David Walker, were mooting imposing charges on current accounts.
It’s a bizarre concept: you lend cheap money to a bank and the bank wants to charge you for the privilege? Yes, there are costs from staffing branches and sending out chequebooks – but that money, when lent on by the bank, still ought to generate a profit. If the bank really can’t cover its costs from the interest rate spread it shouldn’t be in business. Only on Planet Bank Executive could imposing current account charges have ever seemed like a reasonable idea.
Barclay’s volte-face has apparently been spurred by the fact that it’s been haemorrhaging customers since the new seven-day current account switching infrastructure was put in place. All of a sudden those cheap deposits do seem worth having after all. Funny that. A cynic would say that this was a bank that previously took its current account depositors for granted.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments