Banks In Trouble
“A CENTURY ago, the depth of a banking crisis was measured by the length of the queue outside banks. These days, financial panics are more likely to be played out through heavy selling in share, bond or currency markets than old-fashioned bank runs. That makes the sight on the morning of Friday September 14th of a queue of people waiting (patiently in most cases) to take their money out of Northern Rock, a wounded British mortgage bank, all the more extraordinary. A crisis that started in America’s subprime mortgage market where dodgy loans were made to unsound borrowers has shaken the world’s financial capitals since mid-August. Now it has landed on the high street at one of Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders.
Northern Rock faced the triple ignominy of becoming the first British lender in 30 years to be granted a bailout by the Bank of England, losing 29% of its value on the stockmarket, and having to coax savers not to withdraw their money in a rush.”
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