Bank charges - it's a phrase to warm the blood.
How much money did Barclays make in profits last year? It was a lot. It was a very, very great deal. Did HSBC not recently set a record for the highest ever absolute profit for a UK business? No doubt these are large and successful businesses, and there are plenty of shareholders among whom to split the earnings. It is not that we are advocating profit caps or the socialisation of the means of exchange. But still, it is hard to feel sorry for NatWest when it is dragged screaming into the City County Court by the likes Tom Brennan, a recently called barrister - and an instant celebrity - objecting to being charged £38 for a service costing £2.50.
NatWest, purportedly, has offered Mr Brennan £4000 for his £2500 penalty charges, but this is clearly a young man with a sense of the zeitgeist. He is dead right to turn them down. The publicity he has generated over the past couple of days could not be bought by NatWest for tens, probably hundreds of thousands of pounds. Trawling through the keywords being used on LegalDay, bank charges are a highly charged issue.
It is nearly two years now since we first picked up on the issue of bank charges at LegalDay - the first item was in June 2005, when we reported on Stephen Hone - another law student - taking taking Abbey National to court in Plymouth, claiming £2000.
Hundreds of people have since claimed back their charges and there are scores of websites devoted to the issue. The Office of Fair Trading, meanwhile, is running two related investigations into the consumer credit industry. One is looking at penalty charges. The other, looking at current accounts, is a response to the banks' threats to end 'free banking'. It is a hollow threat. Banking is not free, it is extremely expensive, as these two young lawyers have demonstrated. It would be better for everyone if the banks charged for the cost of running an account, and charged again for the real cost of administering unauthorised overdrafts, and dropped the marketing fakery of 'free' accounts.
What is interesting, and rather fun, is the effect of one law student losing his rag and taking his complaint to court. The world will not be quite the same again.
