I’d breached my overdraft limit, so phoned to make sure they wouldn’t bounce my mortgage DD payment (they have before now when it’s coincided with a credit card DD, as it did in December). The woman at at the call centre reassured me, no, it had gone through fine. I told her we’d transfer some money from my wife’s account that evening to return beneath the OD limit, and she explained under what circumstances I would pay an unauthorised OD fee if that didn’t happen. All good, if a bit “squeaky bum time”.

Then, at the end of the call, she told me I’d qualified for a new credit card with the bank and would I like her to activate it and send it out to me! I declined (I’ve got three already), but it seemed an odd conversation to be having during a credit crunch. I can only assume that the bank is looking to generate fees from creditworthy end users to offset the decline in profits from lending to businesses and more exotic trading activities.

On another note: is anyone else fed up with the banks taking the blame for not lending to small businesses? People say it’s a problem with available credit and undue caution post-crunch. But surely banks would naturally be hesitant to lend to small businesses at the start of a recession, even if there hadn’t been a problem in wholesale lending? It’s not often I agree with David Cameron, but risky lending is precisely what got us here to begin with – so it shouldn’t happen now. As Dennis says, surely addressing supply chain and other processes is the best way to manage cash in a recession, not borrowing – which for the bank is a no-win situation.

(Apologies to those of you running businesses with sound order books and tight processes who ought to be able to borrow sensibly but can’t thanks to the recent idiocy of the Masters of the Universe…)