Recent behaviour of our banks has reminded me a lot of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:23-30. I planned to write this a few weeks ago but did not get round to it.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accunts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and all that he had should be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him, 'Be patient with me', he begged, 'and I will pay back everything'. The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!'. He demanded. His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back'.
But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
The excesses of the banking industry have made joyless reading. However, isn't it galling to see the behaviour of some of the newly-nationalised banks? A year or so ago they were offering mortgages (e.g. 125% or 6x salary) that were quite irresponsible as a small setback (e.g. uptick in interest rates) would make the mortgage payments unaffordable. Northern Rock was one of the leaders of this with them raising money on wholesale markets. Then banks hit trouble and the state has to bail them out. With us entering a recession you would think that they would show some flexibility towards their debtors; yet Northern Rock has been reported as being one of the most aggressive reposessors! Indeed responsible for 10% of repossessions.
Of course, banks need to recapitalise and really bad debts need to be dealt with. However, I suspect that many of these reposessions are either a result of people being encouraged to over-borrow or due to short-term payment difficulties. It behoves the banks who invested so much in persuading the public to get into debt to invest time in helping customers replan their finances to remain solvent.
I was encouraged to see yesterday that the Royal Bank of Scotland is postponing the process of reposession to 6 months in arrears. Let's hope that this is not simply a marketing gimmick and that banks proactively engage with their customers to help them replan their finances.
