Ooooh...what a giveaway!

So they've finally stuck their hands up and admitted it.

Your friendly High Street bank is really just like Comet or Debenhams or MFI. They want you to walk through their doors so that they can flog you overpriced add-ons to your banking needs.

A staggering 300,000 of us switch accounts every month and the banks are having to look to alternative ways of marketing to attract their share of this business. So they've looked to the retail sector and hey presto, you have the Bank's version of the January sales.

And of course, following the great tradition set by the big retailers, they are doing their darnedest not to actually give anything away.

The FT notes that some of these deals are really no deal at all. For instance the HSBC "25% refund on interest on their personal loans" is based on a loan rate of 8.3%! Even after the refund there are still many better deals on offer.

The reality is that you never really get the good stuff on sale. The banks know this and as a consequence their "sales" all have an emperor's-new-clothes feel to them.

But today maybe, depending on the courts, we will get a little bit of Christmas from the banks. Long frustrated by exorbitant fees for unauthorised overdrafts, bounced cheques etc. the public has finally had enough. Like parking tickets, these fees have the ability to really get under your skin.

Let's hope that the Judges have had a few bounced cheques and can feel our pain!