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Short personal statement

This is not an advert. No-one has paid me to write or publish this on line. It is a personal statement.
By "the bank" I mean in what follows The Co-operative Bank p.l.c. (UK).

I switched from Barclays Bank to the Co-operative since 1992.
I see the Co-op Bank's main advantages as follows.

• It is owned by its members (customers like me), not by shareholders or other finance speculators.
• It practises ethical investment according to policies determined by its members.
• It does not pay its executives ludicrous fat-cat salaries. Reasonable bonuses are paid at all levels as reward
  to any bank employee whose efforts further the well-being of the Co-operative.
  Employees are overwhelmingly satisfied with the bank's salary and bonus system.
• It was the only UK bank to need no bail-out from the public purse during the credit crisis in 2009-10.
  Multinational HSBC, with its huge assets in Asia, was the only other bank to receive no public money at that time.
• It has had secure, fully functional internet banking longer than any other UK bank.
  The website is uncluttered and simple to use.
• The bank has been voted the UK's Best Financial Services Provider and best high-street bank for several years in a row.
• The bank's 24-7 phone service is quick and reliable. It rarely takes more than a minute from picking up the phone to reaching a real human being.
  
• The bank's call centre is in northwestern England. Its staff are without exception friendly and competent. If they can' t answer your query,
  they'll say so and ask a manager. I've never had to wait more than 5 mins. on those rare occasions.,
  The staff are all native speakers of UK English. They understand what you say and you never need ask them to repeat anything.
• I have had reason to complain just once between 1992 and 2011.
  On that one occasion I received an apology, £15 and a swift, satisfactory solution to the problem.
• The Co-op bank wastes much less of its customers' money on marketing than any other high-street bank.
  It relies much more on personal recommendations like this .
• Thanks to its success, the bank has been the object of aggressive takeover bids by private finance megacorporations.
  Since private ownership is contrary to the principles of co-operativism, the bank and its assets remain the property of its members.

Boycott bonus-bonkers bankers! Go co-operative!

In 2007 , thousands of bank customers in the Netherlands threatened to withdraw their funds if bonuses were paid to
the top executives of banks bailed out by the taxpayer. That helped stop several ludicrous and immoral pay-outs
(The Guardian, 2007-03-07). In the UK no such action has taken place and top bankers are expected to pocket much
larger amounts than the Dutch fat cats (e.g. Hester of RBS: £7.7m; Diamond of Barclays: £6.5m). '[S]ome senior bankers
at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan', adds The Guardian, 'are looking at windfalls of about £40m each.' WHAT?!!?

When the financing of health, education, police and other essential public services is being visciously cut thanks
to reckless gambling bouts with our billions, the last people to be rewarded should be those who carried out
the gambling that caused the mess in the first place. But no, it's those with moderate or low income who have to pay
for the gambling debts run up by the super-rich. If you think that's wrong (I do!) then you should, if you're with
Barclays, NatWest, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, etc., switch to The Co-operative Bank so that your (and all of
our) finances get treated ethically and responsibly. Private corporation bankers obviously live on another planet to the
rest of us: they believe in the the hocus-pocus of derivatives, hedge funds and other magical mysteries of money
markets (see liberal economist Galbraith about the stupidity of it all). The only thing they'll understand is if they
lose money. So, if you have any, take yours away from them and put it somewhere sensible like the Co-op bank!
Thousands have already done so.

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