How embarrassing: It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of his current banking employer when the CEO gets his mortgage from a competitor. That’s just exactly what John Varley, CEO of Barclays Bank, did last year, when he got a mortgage with competitor HSBC. Oops.
Embarrassed Barclays officials yesterday confirmed that the bank’s chief executive took out a home loan last year with its rival HSBC – just months before announcing his disappointment at the bank’s mortgage lending figures during 2005.
Land Registry records show that Barclays’ chief executive, John Varley, took out a mortgage last year with HSBC, whose standard mortgage interest rate is 5.75%, compared with the 6.59% charged by Barclays, which sells Woolwich-branded loans.In February Mr Varley revealed bumper Barclays profits but these failed to hide a dismal showing by Woolwich, the mortgage lender it bought for £5.4bn in 2000. The former building society, whose market share is about 6%, saw a 3% fall in lending as the market was growing by 10%. Mr Varley said at the time: "We’re a big player in the UK mortgage market but our share of flow in 2005 was disappointing. I want to put that right in 2006."
But the revelation that he borrowed from HSBC for his own mortgage is highly embarrassing for the bank. In recent years HSBC has undercut other high-street banks with an aggressive pricing policy that its rivals have called unsustainable.
However, Mr Varley is not the only Barclays executive to snub the bank in favour of mortgages offered by rivals. It is understood the bank’s finance director and deputy chairman have also chosen home loans from other lenders, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB….
Red faces after Barclays bosses get mortgages from rival banks – Guardian UK
Tags: Barclays
