Dear oh dear, the government’s climb-down over its abolition of the 10p tax rate must surely be the final nail in the coffin of Gordon Brown’s reputation as a ‘safe pair of hands for the economy’. What happened Gordo? Once you were the Golden Boy who proved finally that the Labour Party could be trusted […]
22 Apr, 2008
Posted by: Lance In: News
Chancellor Alistair Darling has told mortgage lenders that they should be more lenient to homeowners* who fall behind with their repayments. The meeting was called by the chancellor this morning to let the banks know that taxpayers would expect to see benefits in return for the £50bn+ of their money which Darling has used to […]
I am writing to enquire whether you have any vacancies on your strategic board for someone of my talents. I realise that it is a little unorthodox to apply ‘on spec’ for such a high-ranking position within your organisation, but I believe I have the necessary skills to further increase the profits and assets of Big Bank Plc. In this letter I will attempt to demonstrate my knowledge of the challenges and opportunities in our marketplace.
1) Who are our customers?
I understand that our most lucrative customers are those with the least awareness of financial matters; indeed, the less numerate they are, the better. Rather like the dear old PM, in fact.
If they don’t know the difference between APR and AER, if they fail to read the small print in their credit contracts - not that it matters, as I’m sure I have the necessary legal skills to make such text impenetrable - and if their limited attention is grabbed by an ‘introductory’ rate, then they are exactly the kind of people we need to target.
I think that if we closely follow that other highly successful model of commerce - drug dealing - we won’t go far wrong in attracting and retaining the right customer base.
2) How do we get people to take on more debt?