On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:59:06 +0100, Derek Geldard wrote:

If you are being charitable you say the banks took a gamble on the
asset values continuing to rise and by the time the debt was due
their value would cover it. A gamble they lost big time.

Did any banks really lose actual tangible spendable cash on their UK
private house mortgage business?

Maybe not on the UK private house mortgage business but many if not
all have at least some "toxic assets". The biggest chucks of which
we, as taxpayers, now "own" which includes chuncks from banks that
only took the bailouts rather than being nationalised.

They may have potentially lost on B. T. L. mortgages but these
customers had been paying premium interest rates for their business.

They may have being paying premium interest rate but note the tense.
The past tense. The problem comes from those who have defaulted on
the mortgage meaning the the income and capital payments on the loans
have stopped. The bank is now lumbered with a loan of $x but an asset
only worth $y. This isn't normally a problem as y is normally greater
than x. Trouble comes when x is greater than y.

--
Cheers
Dave.