"self-certified" borrowers, people who have not had to provide proof on income to qualify for loans"

Sheer madness, beggars belief!!!

Homer, London,

One happy 'BTL nut' here. Grown conservatively to 14 units, 45% equity (better than Barclays at 1:50 leverage!). Built the business expecting interest rates at 8%. Happy to take 5% when it was there of course. The reason to do all that ... Gordon Brown buggered my pension.

Andy, Brighton,

Yes we reap what we sow and i hope the ex chief executive of the b&b Steven Crawshaw gets his, from a share holder who is left with nothing D J.

D J , Nottm, England

The standard deposit in Hong Kong is 30%. In Singapore it is 20%.

At government level, both governments have stacks of savings. So HK has given every household a year's contribution to electricity and a 75% reduction in income tax (50% in the previous year) with a moderate cap.

Prudence!

S Scott, Hong Kong,

With Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Spaniards, French, Dutch and even Scandinavian companies buying our banks, businesses and even basic utilities - is this REALLY a GLOBAL crisis or just a USA / UK one? It looks like the rest of them are suffering only because they've lost a few anglo-saxon customers!

lee, Dover,

It's amazing how many are gloating at others misery, just remember when B & B goes under the instability that follows will affect all mortgage payers. BLTers are not the problem, but provided a much needed relief whilst first timer buyers were raising their deposits. FTB can't complain now!!!

Richard Holmes, London, England

I always thought regulation by the FSA would stop sharp practice.

Too many people on self cert mortgages have been encouraged to lie. I really hope all of these cases will be investigated thoroughly and the advisers who arranged the mortgages get fined heavily.

I am so glad I am mortgage free

Barbara , Hereford,

Please can we have an article about how much money the UK government has borrowed, on and off balance sheet, what its assets and liabilites are, so we will know whether the government has made the same mistakes? We were told the PSBR should be less than 40% of GDP over the cycle - is it?

N Reed, Truro, UK

In France, for a residential mortgage, you need a deposit of 30% of the purchase price, and you need to have been in a permanent job for the past 3 years. For a BTL, same conditions, except that in some cases they accept a deposit of only 10%. Maximum monthly repayment in any case: 30% of salary.

Helene, Bristol, Paris,

If its a Global crisis why have the French banks managed to avoid it - Better regulation and management maybe? Why did B&B management take a £400 Million gamble?

steve, London, UK

well government borrow money people to buy houses so i don@ see why taxpayer would argue bale out.
However i argue the bonuses and high salary those average people have on high position in the banks.I don't think they are Edison,Marconi etc they are average Joe who act more as gamblers.
Their salary shouldn' be more than 100K per anum w no bonuses.When bank in trouble they just resign?

zvezdan, london, UK

I would just like good luck and I wish you well to all the B&B staff who have just been informed that they have lost their jobs. To all those critics of B&B and the other banks you should just remember that there is a human cost and you ask how long you could pay your bills if you lost job tonight

Rupert, London, UK

They (MX) strung me along and ruined half a million pounds worth of investment deals by telling me I had mortgages agreed and then cancelled them 3 days before I was due to draw on them.. what goes around comes around. The underwriters and management were shocking....IHappy job hunting! HA!

Peter S, Newcastle, UK

greedy lenders, greedy borrowers (esp BTL) hopeless regulation (there's a shock) and an ignorant government who took the plaudits (prudent chancellor) whilst riding the credit bubble. It would be less sad if we actually learnt from this but its human nature to repeat errors. remember TMT?

Howard, London,

The carpetbaggers were happy to cash in and turn it into a bank.

The suits decided to cause the problem by selling to 'investors' after a quick buck on made up salaries. It encouraged them to push up prices with its garish adverts.

Time to pay the price and its the lowly staff who suffer again

Anthony Lester, Brum,

It is only a timming issue before B & B fails, they are dependent upon the wholesale monetary market which will not lend to them and the business model they do have with the buy to let market is crashing as we speak.
The complete failure of B & B is nothing more than a timming issue now.

Andrew, Newcastle,

My neighbour is a banker. When cutting his hedge recently with an electric trimmer he cut through the power cable. So, he went out and bought another. The thought to re-wire his existing trimmer; which was brand new, didn't occur to him. The financial meltdown is both an economic and social issue.

Miss Thrope, London, Greater London

Should we take our savings out or will ot now become a savings only Building Soc.? Please advise

I Mann, London,

Dont forget the greed culture that has now become part of our society.

dele, forfar, UK

once again incompetent british management, no doubt they will be cushioned by fat golden parachutes, whilst poor old office workers get the sack with nowt!

same old story thru british industry/commerce, idiots at the top will not suffer, just the poor old worker.

mal, london, uk

Who is buying these 'toxic assets' and why?

Paul, Coventry,

I saw this coming 5years ago when our neighbours house gained £40,000 between buyers.Lets hope my children [both in their 20s living with us in our small 3 bedroomed bungalow] can afford a sensibly priced home at the end of next year.And Gordon said we`d feel rich when house prices were rising?????

Carole, Nuneaton, UK

No the mortgage and housing markets havent totally crashed, yet, that may be for next month if the yanks decide not to clear up their mess, but then again I dont think buying trailer park homes in the US and taking paper deposits of builders UK was made compulsory by Mr Brown, he just encouraged it

Steve Nikols, Huntingdon,

If Brown takes the credit for the economy going well during the boom years, surely he has to take some blame during the bust? When the economy was apparently booming we didn't hear him say that it was due to global forces out of his control.

Simon , Liverpool, UK

The gravy train has reached the buffers the bankers have started to reap what they themselves have sawn.If you had approached a bank with a business plan like theres they would have shown you the door ,as for the stock exchange where is the fraud squad lets get some honesty in the system

Harry Coggin, Halsham, east riding of yorkshire

E Greenacre is just being silly he`s probably a Conservative trying to score a few cheap (and inaccurate) points. The PM did set out in some detail the way ahead on dealing with the crisis brought about by the greedy financial community. The B & B seem to have been amongst the greediest of the lot

Dennis, Preston, UK

From now on anyone wanting to borrow money all lenders must test the ability to pay which is

1 see the pay slip of the employee for every quarter in the past year to date

2 Give their national insurance number which must be checked out

3 pay min 7% dep so 175K = £12250 Sensible lending

Russ, ILminster, Somerset

Being a loyal customer of B&B with an excellent fixed rate mortgage for 10 years. We shouldnt blame the instituions after all you shouldnt borrow the money if you cant afford to pay it back. I know the house prices are out of reach of most people but these will reduce over the next year. fingers X'd

Barrie, Gourock, Scotland

I thought superman "Gordon" with the power of his oratory had sorted all these problems out at the Labour party conference, or so the BBC would have us believe.

E. Greenacre, Grimsby, UK

And where was the FSA while all this was happening, exactly what and who were they regulating?, and what was the then Chancellor Mr Gordon Brown doing. and all we hear is about this being a global problem, yes it is in part but Brown is the one that was in the driving seat in the UK,

David Whitefoot, Oxford, UK

It would appear that noone in government has officicially stated that the mortgage and housing markets have totally crashed. I am still hearing politicians saying we are not in the middle of a crash....B and B removing their mortgage processing centre!!!!!! What next!!!

Timmy, Bath,

So BTL is alive and well?

No, oh well, now some of you might have to work for a living.

Come on where is the BTL nut that is going to post something along the lines of "I have 80 properties and am doing fine, raking it in ha ha you bunch of jealous mugs".

Boot is almost on the other foot.

Andrew, London,

Self-cert mortgages were one of the causes of the house price bubble and should be abolished. Everyone should have to provide real evidence of income to obtain credit.

Andrew G, London, UK

standard repetitive comments. I dont work in the banking sector, but if I or any of you did and somebody offered you a 'massive' bonus, would you say no? Its like people going on about gready estate agents. Would you have said no to an offer 20% above your asking price? Time to look forward people

David, London, UK

Yay, 'Demutualisation'! Always thought it would end up in tears.

Steve, T Wells, England

Chickens coming home to roost.

For 10 years, financial institutions like these have pumped up UKs house prices out of reach of hard working UK residents..

Self cert morgages,100% interest only morgages,125% morgages,6x salary morgages,BTL morgages...

About time UK housing became affordable

del any, aberdeen, uk

This is probably another bank which the taxpaer needs to bail out!

Edwin Jacob, Hounslow , Middlesex

Buy-to-let was the acme of greed, a wheeze to get rich quick. It's left places like Canterbury littered with empty blocks of flats. The latter should now be compulsorily purchased at rock-bottom prices by the council and let out to families on the housing waiting-list. Serves the speculators right!

John, Canterbury, UK

They've still got a large budget for annoying advertising.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

I imagine the executive managers of B&B and the real people responsible for it's mismanagement will still benefit from huge disproportionate bonuses and salary increases as well as gold plated pensions, while their staff are sent packing with nothing and their lives in cardboard box. I pray that the saying “you reap what you sow” come into play for these greedy parasites.

Lee Calladine, Portsmouth, England

I worked in the arrears collection department of Bradford & Bingley and that too was a sheer mess. Several weaknesses were identified in the arrears collection process, but none of the managers were interested. They were more interested in what they were having for their tea when they got home.

abid mahmood, Bradford, United Kingdom

I worked for B&B in strategy 5 years ago and said then that the buy to let market was a huge risk. But B&B was coining it in fees and growing share and this encouraged maverick personnel to take silly risks. Those people have left but most went to i-banks where they became rich. Makes you sick.

claire, herts, UK

Heavan forbid that you could short this stock, it's clearly a very fine business built on excellent fundamentals.

Don, London,

one more bite the dust
who is next BARCLAYS???????????

SAUD, riyadh, saudi arabia

Sacking the "staff" who implemented B&B's business model. Yes, that should solve their problems; punish the innocent and promote the guilty.

Bill Peter, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Shame, but it sounds like they have only themselves to blame, for taking too many risks. It's extraordinary that the over-paid, vast-brained, banking demi-gods failed to see this coming, nor managed to fix it.

Will duffay, London,