How kind of Barclays

I bank with Barclay Bank and had such a nice letter from them today, telling me about a new Personal Reserve account, that they were making available to me - "help when you need it most".

However I did look at bit closer and noted that they would charge £22 per week on any sum (up to the limit of £500) borrowed on this account. So it's cheaper if you borrow the maximum amount, but even so - that is 4.4% every week, which works out at 738% per year compounded. If you were foolish enough to borrow a smaller sum the same charge in pounds would apply, so the percentage rate would be higher.

Its easy to be cynical, so I was pleased to read that it was introduced to "improve your day to day banking with Barclays". Just think how much more they might have charged if the object had been to improve their profits rather than to improve my banking experience!

 

Can't believe that's legal! It's appalling.

 

We had the same Letter Peter,But i thought it was £22 charged for 5 days. i didn,t read it all, just binned it...

 

Yes Daisy - it was £22 for 5 working days - ie a week.

 

Isn't that on unauthorised borrowing ? If it is then better that than bouncing cheques and DD's which would cost considerably more. Mostly these T&C's are to encourage resposible borrowing namely pre-arranged limits

 

In a way it is Banana Man. But in a way it isn't. It is also an authorised borrowing facility. I suspect it is more to do with the bottom line than trying to encourage responsibility.

But ultimately, it comes down to personal responsibility. Unfortunately many people are their own worst enemies. It is debatable as to how responsibility should be shared between drug dealers and drug users: and there is no doubt that credit is a drug.

 

They have bought out this new account which has had terrible right ups in the financial papers to replace the charging of £30/35 which the banks were taken to court over as was deemed "not legal". I certainly wouldn't take advantage of this new "wonderful" service as it's just another way around the charges.