Why do banks always put customers last and other editorial comment from Australia and abroad

Why do banks always put customers last? - Daily Mail, London


ON its website, TSB boasts: ‘We’re always open and honest, with no nasty surprises.’ Paul Pester, the bank’s £2million-a-year boss, should try telling that to the 1.9million of his customers who’ve been suffering some of the nastiest surprises of their lives since the weekend.
Many have lost all access to their money, unable to pay bills or employees’ wages or shop for essentials. Others have seen unexplained sums withdrawn or credited to their accounts.
In a glaring threat to security, hundreds report logging on to TSB, only to see strangers’ accounts. Now we’re told some problems won’t be fixed until the end of April.
Indeed, this is an IT meltdown on a mammoth scale – caused, it appears, by pressure from the bank’s Spanish owners to save money by switching to a new system before it was ready.
Why, in the financial sector, do customers always come last? Of those affected, many were with Lloyds before they were told out of the blue their accounts were being moved to TSB under orders from the European Commission. Nor were they consulted when TSB was sold to Spain’s Sabadell three years ago.
Like other banks’ customers, meanwhile, they were bullied into banking online – to suit not them, but lenders wanting to close branches. Now this.
But then what better have we come to expect of a sector which puts greed above all else? Indeed, the TSB meltdown coincides with a damning survey on the treatment of borrowers and savers, conducted by consumer group Which?.
This finds lenders were quick to increase rates on loans when the base rate last rose. Yet only one in ten passed on the full increase to savers within five weeks – while some offered worse returns than before.
Is this the thanks taxpayers get for bailing out the City to the tune of £1trillion?
The Mail urges regulators to make an example of TSB – not just forcing it to pay full compensation, but fining it heavily for causing so much grief. Somehow the message must be rammed home that bankers must start putting customers first.

The price of failed gun policies - Washington Post

The shooting at a Waffle House outside Nashville shows the need for a change in Congress this election year.
Voters should elect a Congress that will undertake comprehensive gun law reform. Reinstating the federal ban on assault weapons is a must. So, too, is restricting magazine capacity. That the shooter at the Waffle House apparently stopped to reload gave a quick-thinking patron, James Shaw Jr., the chance to disarm him, thus saving countless lives. In a few months, Americans will have a chance to vote for candidates for Congress who support constitutional limits on weapons of war, and against candidates who remain complicit in letting peaceable Waffle House patrons be terrorized by them.

The customs union is imperative for Britain’s future prosperity - Financial Times of London 

Ever since she became prime minister in July 2016, Theresa May’s government has flannelled and prevaricated on a central question of Brexit: whether Britain should join a customs union with the EU, thus maintaining a common external trade tariff against the rest of the world.
The UK is now approaching the point at which decisions need to be made. The UK and EU authorities meet in June to agree the outlines of the UK’s post-transition relationship with the bloc. The House of Lords has already signalled support for a customs union; a majority in the House of Commons would probably back one, too. Mrs May’s equivocation is becoming ever more untenable.
The conclusion of a lengthy debate among policymakers, customs and trade experts and businesses should be clear. Both to fulfil its promises to keep the Irish border open, and to maintain Britain’s sophisticated just-in-time supply chains with the continent, the UK should seek a new customs union with the EU that in essence replicates current arrangements. On top of this, it should seek to keep those EU regulations, particularly in food and agriculture, needed to reduce the need for hygiene inspections as well as checks for customs tariffs and rules of origin.

The Guardian view on the EU customs union: the start of the Brexit crunch - The Guardian

Theresa May has promoted the pyrrhic freedoms of a fantasy Brexit for too long. It is time for compromises that protect manufacturing and Northern Ireland
London's Daily Telegraph

Lawless south - Jerusalem Post

Beduin lawlessness in the Negev is nothing new. And our law enforcement institutions are fighting an uphill battle. ... Clearly a large part of the problem of lawlessness in the Negev stems from the Beduin’s feeling of disenfranchisement from the Jewish state. And this is a vicious circle: The state of lawlessness strengthens the feeling among Beduin that they are outside the state’s purview, which deepens their alienation.
Organizations intent on bashing Israel for its “racist” settlement policy in the Negev are a radicalizing element, as are Arab Knesset members who regularly take the side of the lawless Beduin squatters against the state.
Part of the solution is to double down on enforcement so that the rule of law is not undermined in the Negev. ...
The challenges facing Israel in integrating its Arab and Beduin citizens is not unlike Europe’s difficulty dealing with the waves of immigrants from Muslim states, many of whom are refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria. In both cases, democratic societies are grappling with a radicalized Muslim minority that feels alienated in part because it does not share the values of the majority culture.
There are no easy answers to this state of affairs. But a good place to start is enforcing the rule of law, which is the basis for every healthy democracy.

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