By cuckooshoe
BBC Scotland’s Business and economy editor, Douglas Fraser reported yesterday:
On Thursday, the directors of Virgin Money UK plc announced they have agreed to recommend to shareholders that they vote to accept a £2.9bn takeover offer by Nationwide building society.
Virgin Money operates under the licence for Clydesdale Bank, which took it over in 2018 and adopted its brand, saying farewell to the older brand’s presence in Glasgow since 1838 while, for no obvious reason, continuing to print Clydesdale bank notes.”
If the Nationwide’s shareholder’s agree to the takeover, it provides an opportunity to compare the state of banking sector in Scotland today, with this Treasury paper from 2013.
There are only two pages, but it also lists Scotland’s banking ‘assets’ at that time
Scotland analysis: financial services and banking: Calculating the size of the Scottish banking sector relative to Scottish GDP
The Treasury’s paper outlines that:
Banking sector assets for the whole of the UK at present are around 492% of GDP.
The banking sector in Scotland, by comparison, would be extremely large in the event of independence. It currently stands at 1254% of GDP.
It will be interesting to compare the Scottish and UK percentages now!
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-68628838
Talking-up Scotland 
England doing to Scotland what it has always done strip their colonies of all its assets then say you can have your independence now.
Have you seen this one the joke of the day but serious.
Ironic moment on Good Morning Scotland this morning when presenter Graham Stewart criticised GB News for presenting politically partisan pundits as neutral. BBC Scotland has been doing this for years. Pro-Union pundits regularly have their political background concealed.
LikeLiked by 8 people
As a Nationwide member – not shareholder – I was not consulted about the bid for Virgin Money, nor, as I understand it, will I be able to vote on the deal. I have not been given a satisfactory explanation as to why Nationwide’s management has decided to do this.
Is it part of a longer term strategy to demutualise?
Alasdair Macdonald.
LikeLiked by 7 people
Thatcher demutialused the Building Societies owned by their members. Sold them of to the bankers who gambled the mortgage books. The housing/banking crash. Overvalued property. Thatcher cut leverage 25% to 13%. Not enough in reserve.
Thatcher/Reagan, Clinton/Blair/Brown reduced banking collateral, worldwide. Collapse.
The Bankers fund the Tory Party. ‘1980’s fraud and loads of money bankers’. The Banks ran out cash. In debt. They had to be bailed out with public money. They did not go to jail for vast international banking fraud and tax evasion. Thatcher introduced tax havens.
Clydesdale was Australian owned. Making losses. Virgin making losses. Or not enough profit.
LikeLike
Matheson RBS said the debt was not in Scotland. In London and the Midlands overpriced, over valued property. Scotland would have survived the banking crash Not a lot debt by comparison. Scotland paying off Westminster acquired debt. Making repayments on money not borrowed or spent in Scotland.
Westminster por, bad decisions.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’d like to think in an independent Scotland the banking sector would be operating under very different conditions to those of HM Treasury, thus comparing apples with pears.
There can be no doubt the sector will be healthy and strong, but there is much to be done in reforming what UK politics did to it.
LikeLiked by 1 person