[Twilight]

I am not great at economics, so tend to be uncertain even when the obvious is staring me in the face. Which sometimes appears to be what I expect to see, but is not. So, a question.

A few of you have posted rankings in the past of how much ass various financial institutions have exposed to the elements right now. I recall HSBC being quite high up the lists. Their skyscrapers are a bit of a give-away.

This story cropped up recently.

Having thousands of pounds' worth of all-purpose interest free credit facilities is nice, but where does the money sit? Suppose you have a million young customers, with an average balance of -£1,000 in their current account, allowing for month-to-month fluctuations? That means the bank is sitting on -£1bn in that area? (Figures are for illustrative purposes only).

Now why, after a decade of this system getting hordes of new customers through the door, does this bank (and so far only this bank) want to charge interest? Especially as a side-effect would be a significant portion of those customers paying off the overdraft, closing the account and opening an identical one at any other bank? Is this pure coincidence, or was HSBC trying to get a few hundred million pounds fast, at the expense of their competition, while also willing to lose customers? Or have I misunderstood how this is accounted, given I know little of banking?

So, why them, why now, why something with such bad PR, yet guaranteed to get a surge of cash flowing through the door? Is this what I am expecting it to be?

As an aside, packaged! Maybe not a bad deal for whomever got it, assuming it didn't get blended with garbage along the way.