Loss of personal contact has added to bank's fall

It is both depressing and alarming to read the exposé by Hugh K Young, former general manager and secretary of the Bank of Scotland (Letters, 16 July), of the decline and fall of that once mighty institution.

Over the many years, since I was four years old, my savings have been in the hands of the Bank of Scotland (which had then taken over the British Linen Bank).

Yesterday, I had occasion to telephone the local branch of the Bank of Scotland – some two miles from my home – to request some very basic information concerning my account, and was automatically transferred to a call centre in Belfast.

After undergoing searching interrogation to prove my identity, entailing time and much patience on my part, I received a not entirely satisfactory answer to my query – this from Northern Ireland.

Since the merger with Halifax, trust and confidence in the Bank of Scotland have well nigh collapsed through this loss of personal contact with its clientele.

MARGOT MacGREGOR

Gartymore

Helmsdale, Sutherland

Further to Hugh K Young's splendid letter, it now seems very likely that the board of directors will lose control of the HBoS which is known in some circles as the Mongrel Bank (neither a proper bank nor a good building society). It is to be hoped that they will not tolerate grocers, bakers and candlestick makers on the board, but sack the current directors and refuse to reward them for their failures.

JOSEPH P HENDERSON

Blackford Avenue

Edinburgh

As what are probably Scotland's two most important companies (HBOS and RBS) apparently go into meltdown with all the ramifications that will hold for practically every business and individual in the country, one would have expected our political masters at Holyrood to have expressed a view or shown some concern as the situation has developed over the past few months. Not likely. They have been far too busy stoking up synthetic indignation over whether a donation of £950 was legal or not.
not. Parish council politics right enough.

IAN LEWIS

Mayfield Terrace

Edinburgh