Bank profits and bonuses on the rise - 03/08/2009 12:23
Bank bonuses for this year could hit £4 billion, according to economists' prediction and profits are now starting to flow as after they were propped up by the government.
Neither HSBC nor Barclays took direct government support in the way Lloyds Banking and Royal Bank of Scotland did, but they did see support from the asset guarantee programmes.
And now they are posting profits.
How you treat these profits and bonuses for the hard-working bankers depends on how you see them being made.
Either the banks deserve all their gains through tenacity and hard work through a crisis, perhaps of their own creation, and deserve the gains they made.
Or they have been propped up by governments scared to the teeth of the results of a collapsing financial system, and are now only thriving because of the state support around the world and the fact many of their competitors have slipped out of business or been bought.
The truth probably falls somewhere between the two - and your taking of the situation possibly depends on where you work.
On the high street, there is anger because the whole crisis is blamed on the casino banks taking excess risks with assets they did not know the value of and dropped the world into recession, or some such simplified history.
Do we forgive those who have sinned against us? For many I suppose it rests on whether the high street lending picks up, while profits are being pulled out of the back of the sofa in the City.
The retail banking operations of banks are still struggling facing losses as the recession and rising unemployment increase defaults and make them more concerned about lending.
But many - both consumers and businesses - see their case for a loan turned down when they feel they are a solid bet.
It seems the banks are rising out of the recession first - as they often do - but they are being unwilling to drop a rope quite so soon to pull the rest of the economy out.
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