The Masters of the Universe

The latest kick in the collective rear of stock markets worldwide was delivered by the HSBC bank with its record losses a few days ago. I have had a bit of exposure to this august institution. Five years ago I was, rather me and my wife were, sold a portfolio management service by the local branch of HSBC. Represented relentlessly and ably by a team of smart smooth talkers. I am not easily impressed by power-point presentations and rehearsed sales talk, but these guys seemed to have researched the numbers and to know what they were talking about. I do not know to what extent I was influenced by the presence in the team of a fit twenty-something. Anyway we got suckered into committing a largish sum of money to the care of HSBC financial services. The first thing that happened after the money was transferred was that we stopped hearing from the bank. The next thing that happened was that we found it difficult to get hold of them. Unfortunately they also made a lot of bad investments on our behalf. Were reluctant to rectify. Were tardy in revising when they did decide that they had erred. Eventually we pulled out and took control of our own investments back from them. As expected by now, they were slothful in executing transfer documentation. And then started the fun. One month after the account was closed we started getting multi-page account activity and account balance statements. These are printed on expensive paper, inserted into expensive envelopes and couriered through an expensive document delivery service. And they show NIL activity and NIL balance - on two separate sheets. And they come in duplicate - one for my wife, the first holder and one for me, the joint holder. Followed, inevitably it would seem, by end of year summaries in April every year. This has carried on for close to five years now. After some time we stopped wasting time and money trying to tell them to stop. A few months ago we also got a warning to the effect that HSBC had noticed NO ACTIVITY in our account and if we persisted in our errant ways they would be obliged to freeze the account. No such luck. This morning the courier dutifully delivered my copy of the NULL statement. The other shoe should drop shortly.