T S Bull

CF was idly watching TV earlier, when on came an advert for the TSB.

Obviously, all adverts have only one purpose - to tell us all how simply fucking marvellous the advertisee is, if you'd just, y'know, take the time to understand them, people.

So, here we go. The thing to know is that apparently the TSB, amongst other things..

 ".. foregoes using its own investment bank .. refuses to lend to big business and .. keeps all of its money within the UK"

Hang on. Hang the fuck on.  That might just about work if CF set up a tiny bank, with 5 customers and no shareholders. He could keep the money safely hidden, and give it back to the customers when they wanted it. Lovely.

But what if there were thousands of customers? What if those customers wanted to be able to get 'their' money out of an ATM at any hour ofthe day, anywhere in the world? What if those customers wanted standing orders and direct debits to fire money all around the world at short notice? What if customers wanted to have an ... er ... overdraft, so they could keep buying shit even when 'their' money is gone?

Well, that's all easy for any of the old, eeevil, banks - they've made money elsewhere, investing (yeah, 'casino gambling'), and lending money to businesses who pay interest for the privilege. They can afford to build a vast ATM network, to pay for the huge server farms that calculate balances and run transactions (and yes, to reward the people that turned every pound deposited into one pound fifty)

So how's the new, improved, hippy, airy-fairy TSB gonna do this then?  Certainly not by getting all grubby with .. eww .. 'investing' or lending. Perhaps they're going to magic the money out of thin air? Perhaps they're going to charge customers 50 quid to use a cashpoint, and 30 quid to transfer funds?

Or perhaps, just perhaps,  it's all utter bollocks ..