Miliband promises two challenger banks amid major branch sell off

[VectraMan]

There must be a successful model we can copy which didn't go bang because of casino style banking.

Communism?

[KentPhilip]

Milliband is a liar and a hypocrite.
As someone on the radio put it rather well: "Listening to the Labour party is like taking advice on fire-fighting from an arsonist"

[v8gaz]

Thats a brilliant electioneering statement from Milliband. Read Bank 3.0 - every bank is going to be closing branches soon enough, and he will take the credit for tje obvious. Retail/small business banking is a millstone around every bank's neck (see every 'where can I get free banking' thread passim) - why would you pay for a high street presence with costly staff to service old ladies and debt-ridden small businesses when people with real disposable income are internet savvy and in fact wouldn't be seen dead in a branch. When was the last time you were in a branch? Prolly 6 years for me.

Banking is going to change, but not because Milliband makes idle threats.

[AtW]

Miliband lost it, strange Balls is silent, perhaps he wants Ed to get backstabbed soon.

[Zero Liability]

He is spot on about the size of banks. We should not have companies "too big to fail". More competition can only be a good thing. How to achieve this is another matter.

Oh, no doubt. However, what the frack does Milliband know about banks, other than how to schmooze them up when he realises on which side his bread is buttered? Politicians sans banksters = rather ugly actors.

I think Daniel Hannan (and yes, Godfrey Bloom) have a far better appreciation of how banks work and how the overall system functions than this toff.

What should be looked into is also the role of bank regulation contributing to their current shape and form, and how competent the regulators actually are. The "competition" thing is the latest stick with which to beat industries that are out of favour. It's being wielded against the Big Four, where there is very little real support that there isn't "enough" competition (and to the degree that it is true, it's due to restrictive covenants by the banks, which again enjoy a very privileged position politically speaking, not least of all due to the TBTF paradigm and central bank support in coordinating FRB.)

Of course, it is probably not difficult to get the OFT to pass such a verdict, based on highly idealised models of how the economy works, or ones which require significant bureaucrat discretion to be identified and applied.

In a nutshell, neither regulators nor politicians have much exposure to competition themselves, so I fail to see what they understand about it or what qualifies them to plan a complex system like the economy without adverse effects; even in those cases where they do possess a good theoretical or practical understanding of it, what makes them think they can plan it? Paying lip service to "more competition" without going into the economics of it is all too easy. It may very well be that banking does exhibit too "little" competition (too apathetic a consumer base too, maybe?) but then it's an industry insulated from it, anyway.

Also agree with the sentiment that market forces will have their way with banks, regardless of what Milliband (or Cameron) is ranting about.

The BBC news today pointed out that there are already 9 challenger banks

EDIT:
and that people don't like changing banks, which is why they don't. Not lack of competition.

Yeah. Besides the stuff I mentioned, I am really not sure what he's on about, and I doubt he has anything like that in mind.

[Paddy]

And already the Bank of England Governor has announced that if Labour wins he's off.

No loss to the UK then.