I've just been notified by my bank that they are paying me £100 under their fairer share policy. I'm with a UK "bank" called Nationwide. Well it isn't really a bank in the full sense of the word, but it provides a range of current accounts, savings account, and credit cards, and it offers mortgages. It is really categorised as a mutual building society, and the customers have an interest in the banks priofitability. It seems that they made so much money last year, that they are giving eligible customers a £100 payment. I don't have to do anything to receive this. I suspect that they were so profitable because there are government restrictions on the type of activities that they can undertake. For example, they can't lend money to foreign countries, or to businesses, and they can't indulge in the speculative financial instruments that havce bankrupted many of the true banks.
I believe that the abundance of toxic loans that are in the books of so many banks are part of a policy to force out smaller banks, and centralise banking into a few major international players. The toxic loans have also been used to transfer wealth away from much of the world population, and into the coffers of the wealthy banking elite.
It's not about being able to work as a complete commercial bank, it's about your vision and mission, these two things could help in realizing so much wealth even than some commercial banks. It's also good to point out that in some economic uncertainties of a country, banking and banking-related sectors are not always poor, especially this time when the interest rate is dangerously high in many countries.
Also, the bank issue in the US has caused a lot of misconception globally, it's not like that. Any country could have an issue in their sector, while other countries are booming in that sector. Taking my country as an example, banks are recording huger annual gains compared to the time without inflation issues. So, we should not use the US banking woes to judge globally, this is as the economy of the UK is even improving.
By the way, congratulations to you on the £100.