From the Ed: One email, one collective gasp…

Shortly after 10:30am, an FSA email arrived with details that HSBC – one of the world’s largest banking conglomerates (and my bank of choice) – had been fined £10.5m because one of its subsidiaries had mis-sold investment bonds to the elderly. And not just a few bonds either, but almost 2,500 of them to customers with an average age of 83, all sold within the six years to July 2010. Here’s the rub: In many cases, the five-year investment period for the bonds was longer than the individual customer’s life expectancy. It isn’t the first time the FSA has issued a fine against a bank, nor...