Free Lunch (cancelled)

Well, it didn't take long. No sooner did we speculate about the end of free banking and hey presto, it's gone.

RBS broke ranks first with a rather confusing (read: deliberately misleading)series of comments introducing a new raft of small business fees starting with phrases like "this has nothing to do with the current credit crisis" and "this will only affect customers with legacy deals".

Legacy. What a great word. Until it was hijacked recently it meant anything handed down from the past, or a gift from a will. But in the modern way (read: American way)the word has been subtley disfigured. The deliberate use of the word "legacy" now implies that the old, inadequate or deficient proceedure no longer works in the current circumstance. Somehow, someway it is your fault.

A new computer system that doesn't work with old data performs poorly because of "legacy" issues (read: "your spanking new £150,000 system won't function properly because your last IT Twit built this using spit and chewing gum". "But...but.. it has worked OK for the last 10 years?" "duh....but you don't have the new DX50 super xenox gigachip with no-leak wings do you?...no you've got major legacy issues".)

Oh.

Always the not-so-subtle implication being that whatever came before is inadequate or flawed and that the inability of the present solution to function correctly is simply the fault of the previous buffoon.

And that brings us back to RBS. Now no longer prepared to offer their small business customers a small crumb of comfort in their banking relationship. Not good enough that the business man and woman is already under significant cost pressure in the market place. No, through no fault of their own (and significant fault from the bank in their indescribably cavalier investment strategies) long suffering small business is expected to take it on the chin yet again.

"I'd like to move my business account to you Mr. New Bank"

"And why have you decided to move from the Royal Bank of Scotland Mr. Businessman?"

"Legacy issues".