JUST how bad does it have to get before we the exploited masses force our governments to intervene in the banking system, as the current regulatory system is obviously unfit for purpose?

The banking collapse in 2008, brought about by deliberate mis-selling of bundled worthless mortgages, has been followed by revelations of other misdemeanours from “let them hang themselves” to PPI and to the proven laundering of drug money. The gradual herding of the great unwashed into relying on plastic cards rather than hard cash and payday loans at APRs of 1.350 per cent are other examples. People carp about tax evasion and tax avoidance but fail to understand that without the co-operation wittingly or otherwise of the international banking system neither would be possible other than by lugging suitcases of money about. The trillions of pounds secreted offshore is not buried on some tropical island but in the ledgers of the banking system and being reinvested.

When will the penny drop that banks are not a public service but a privately-owned exploitative money-making enterprise of which the limited exposes that we are gradually hearing about is just the tip of an ugly iceberg?

David J Crawford,

85 Whittingehame Court, Glasgow.

I WATCHED on television with a mixture of disbelief and dismay the debate on Thursday in the House of Commons regarding the behaviour of the Royal Bank of Scotland to some of its customers (“RBS accused of ‘largest theft anywhere – ever”, The Herald, January 19). The Royal Bank was not the only bank which had its practices called into question. Some of the examples given by MPs of all parties into how the Banks were reported to have behaved simply beggared belief.

For very many years our banks were managed at the most senior level by people who may not have been intellectually brilliant. What these people had in abundance, however, was a huge amount of common sense and a very high level of integrity. These qualities were sufficient to ensure that the banks offered a fair and sensible service to their customers thereby benefiting their customers, the banks' staff and indeed their shareholders.

Obviously times have moved on in this globalised world with its increasingly complicated financial instruments. However, I cannot help taking the view that if our banks to-day could be run by people with the attributes of those who fulfilled these functions for most of the last century, ourcCountry would be served much better.

Graham Mathewson,

27 Randolph Road, Stirling.