Naming the guilty

The financial crisis is getting personal, with the press beginning to single out individual bankers...

HBOS’s aggressive corporate banking division was revealed to have been at the heart of the £10 billion shock loss announced by Lloyds Banking Group yesterday. Lloyds Banking Group issued a warning that HBOS, the ailing bank it has taken over, made a whopping £7 billion of corporate losses last year after making bad bets on business lending.

Lloyds admitted that HBOS’s corporate division, which was run by Peter Cummings — the highest-paid executive at the bank — has had to write off £7 billion of bad loans, far more than HBOS’s management ever admitted. Mr Cummings is understood to have left in early January with a payoff thought to be about £660,000 and £6 million of pension entitlements.

Yesterday's star, becomes today's scapegoat. Lets hope that Mr. Cummings doesn't become a sponge to soak up all the blame. There are plenty of other culprits out there, hiding behind Cummings, Crosby and the other gamblers from HBOS.