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BANKS

Banks are the most important sector who’s actions could FAR MORE usefully be made transparent than the current hoo ha about MPs.

It seems to me that this credit crunch is being blamed on banks giving people a chance for a mortgage (i.e. AfroAmericans in the US, council house tenants in the UK). However, I suspect the role of high interest rates for those mortgages, plus credit cards and subsequent secured loans that usually offer nothing to show at the end of the day and their extortionate interest rates are far more to blame. If this is the case I would like it to be far more clear than it is now.

I would like to know who gets what type of bank loan and why:

The bank that gave a higher proportion of mortgages to women than any other Building Society (the Catholic Building Society) was recently taken over by the Chelsea Building Society. Is that unique (if paultry) focus on women customers now lost?

And did you know that although it was the largest supplier of mortgages to women (widows and women struggling with a job and childcare), it could still only count women as less than 29% of it’s mortgage base?

Could a bank that specialises in women and/or ethnic minority mortgages and loans - as in the insurance market that over the past 4 decades has appropriately reduced insurance for women drivers to below that of men - be encouraged by government?

Can more public research be done on the TYPE OF DEBT that women are encouraged to take on? My guess is that women count as a majority in the percentage of short-term investment and consumables - store card and catalogue credit holders - but that more serious and longterm investment in the form of mortgages or businesses is where women and ethnic minorities are held back. As 51% of the population, these figures are not good for a “fair” society.

As such, women are far more likely to spend a lifetime paying “dead money” in the form of rents to social or private landlords; higher interest repayments to banks; and high interest repayments to stores and catalogues than being allowed a mortgage. I suspect that Mrs Thatcher’s policy of council house sales improved this as it made long term investments (property) more availalable to women and men from working class sectors - but I don’t know because there doesn’t seem to be any research into this.

Can more public research be done on the LEVELS OF INTEREST applied to women, men and people from ethnic minorities? I suspect that women and ethnic minorities are more likely to be charged a higher rate of interest.

I have to admit that I’m not unbiased in this. In the early 1990s I asked several banks to provide me with a mortgage for a second flat in London that sold for �21,000. I was turned down by all of them although I was working full-time and had a salary that could cover repayments. As it was to be an investment the rent would have covered the mortgage. The same property sold for �125,000 in 2006. Again, the same thing happened in the early 2000s and I discovered that I was being charged a higher rate of interest than most other customers with my bank, which had already cost me thousands of pounds over 10 years. In addition, the rates available to me throughout this decade are higher than the “norm” - according to Bank of England rates. I cannot prove this inequality because there hasn’t been any research so I am left feeling powerless and frustrated. I suspect I am being discriminated against but cannot prove this. On the other hand, nearly all the banks I have encountered have felt it entirely appropriate to offer me credit cards (at anything between 15-30% apr) or bank loans. They have even given my husband - someone who is severely disabled and reliant on welfare benefits - over �20,000 of unsecured debt - although had he applied for a mortgage for the same amount I doubt he would have even got an application form!

If the myth that women are paid 70% of what men are paid is to be believed, then why are women only about 20% of the mortgage market?

Unless I’m wrong and there is research out there that proves banks are fair and unbiasied, more public research needs to be done on which groups in society are favoured by banks and for what type of debt. This is a whole-life issue for people in this country, not a short-term one. This credit crunch is an ideal time to look at this issue. My guess is that not only women but ethnic minorities are discriminated against severely.

I have written to the Equality Commission to ask about precentages for the number of women holding mortgages but they tell me they do not have these figures to hand.

Once the research is done then action can be taken - whether that is through the courts with regard to discrimination by banks; or through the private sector by setting up banks that are aimed at women as their primary customer base; or through government legislation with regard to a limit on the interest rates and type of debt that banks, stores and other consumable suppliers can impose on individuals.

I hope you might consider this issue of bank and debt an important one and instigate some research so that women and other disadvantaged groups in society can attain some real equality in terms of financial security.