I always hated scrambled Egg...

About a month ago, I read with some concern that the Egg Bank was peremptorily cancelling the credit cards of 161,000 of its customers, on the grounds that they represented an unacceptable credit risk, or looked likely to become one in the future. Well, that’s me buggered, I said to myself, and braced myself for an ugly letter through the mailbox (well, to be precise, looked carefully through my large pile of post which I had not yet opened as it looked too frightening). Nothing. Sigh of relief, but native wariness caused me to get on with acquiring a back-up credit card without delay.

Then, of course, came the litany of complaints from aggrieved Egg customers; hundreds of them wrote to the papers and the BBC to say that they had been ideal customers, paragons of sensible financial behaviour never missing a payment. In many cases Egg had agreed that the customer’s behaviour could not be faulted, but refused to go back on their decision. The official explanation was that “while some customers in that group may be up to date with their payments and have a good record with credit reference agencies and so on, the probability of them becoming a higher-risk customer in the future is higher than we wish to accept."

Cynics, however, suspected that it was precisely the “good” customers Egg were trying to drive away, as they are not making enough money out of them. As it happens I am in a position to provide supporting evidence for this view. Not only have many “good” customers been targeted, but the “bad” ones have not. I have heard nothing from the customer-sacking branch of Egg, although I am a disastrously imprudent manager of personal finances. I have no regular income, miss payments, max out at inappropriate times and am generally rather a naughty boy. Egg have already refused me a loan once. I get regular correspondence from them, each time thinking that the axe will now fall, but it is always to remind me to set up a Direct Debit to pay their bills. I don’t like to inform them that my bank will no longer let me do Direct Debits, such is my delinquency. My brother-in-law is also an Egg customer, and also an extremely dilatory one in most of the same respects. Neither of us have had any trouble.

So I think it can be regarded as proven that Egg is only trying to get rid of the line-toeing, regular-paying brigade while giving the feckless and imprudent the run of the place. And, as has been often pointed out, a bank is allowed to choose its customers at whim if it wants. The poor people shut out have no legal grounds for complaint. Why the insulting hypocrisy, though? Why can’t Egg just stand up and advertise itself as the bank for the irresponsible swashbuckler, and change its name to Vanity Fair or something? I might respect that.

In the meantime, why are bankers still allowed to walk our streets unmolested, without even feeling compelled to don false moustaches, burqas etc. to conceal their identity? Why do they feel so safe? I saw a Class War slogan in London recently: “The rich only sleep at night because we let them”. Why do we do that? Why?

In the meantime, let us hope that the 161,000 customers so basely excluded by Egg all default on their outstanding balances. Thing is, they’re probably not the type.