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The newly established Supreme Court replaced the House of Lords this month as the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court will decide whether the OFT can judge bank charges using fairness rules as the first test case result back in April last year ruled.
Since then, the banks have been appealing the decision and delaying the case that could see them billions of pounds worse off. Writing on the bank charges case, Tony Hazell at the Daily Mail said:
"Our information is that the Financial Services Authority has asked for details of charges going back to 2001. This implies that the banks may be forced to repay any unauthorised charges going back a full eight years.
"The implications are stunning. We estimate that the total bill could be close to £20billion if the banks are forced to repay every customer every penny they are owed," he said, adding, "This could seriously strain the finances of some of the biggest semi-nationalised banks."
Banks such as Lloyds and RBS, both of which have been hit hard by the banking crisis, could soon find themselves in an even more vulnerable position, depending on the Supreme Court's decision.
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and was established as a corporate body by Royal Charter under the Bank of England Act 1694. The Bank was nationalised on 1 March 1946, and gained operational independence to set interest rates in 1997 (the Bank of England Act 1998 Part II sets out the responsibilities and objectives of the Bank in relation to monetary policy).
Originally posted by XXXN3O
reply to post by endisnighe
As far as I am aware the bank of england is fairly similar to the federal reserve, it gives loans to the government (treasury department), sets the base rate of borrowing for high street banks and controls the rate of inflation. The Bank of England operates independently of government as far as I am aware but is given objectives by the government.
Natwest's computer systems are currently experiencing problems that have lead to service outages, according to reports by bloggers and Twitter users.
Dan Stuchbury, a developer who lives in Wiltshire, blogged on Friday that he had been told at his local Natwest branch that their computer systems had crashed. Twitter user Gavin Quayle said that Natwest ATMs across London were also not working.
Other Twitter users reported that RBS machines were also down (Natwest is owned by RBS).
A Natwest spokesperson had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.