Monday, 1 March 2010

Bad debts and sterling under pressure

Rather worrying news from the banks this morning as the level of debts written off because defaulting borrowers will never repay them shot up last year.

£4.12bn in credit card loans,and £984m in mortgages were written off last year as well as other loans of £4.2bn.

In total £9.3bn will be uncollected.

It hasn't been a good day for the banks with HSBC reporting a 24 per cent fall in pre-tax profit to $7.1bn for last year mainly down to loan write offs but these were mainly in the UK.

Just to put a cap on the financial news,sterling is under pressure mainly as a result of uncertainities as to who will win the next election.The pound is currently trading under $1.50 amid concerns over who will tackle the UK’s record budget deficit.

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