The phrase House of Cards comes to my mind as we hear of more losses, arising this time from a fraud involving something around £50 billion. Would we have heard anything now of the latest if the sub-primes had not gone belly-up? But the system used by Bernard Madoff seems to have been nothing new and was one that would have been detected had the regulatory body made the usual checks and supervision. Maybe it was the sheer scale that kept them away? In amongst the identified losers based in UK are banks that are already in the midst of rough waters. HSBC Holdings plc has potential exposure of about $1.5 billion. Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc had exposure through trading and collateralized lending to funds of hedge funds invested with Madoff, with a potential loss of around 400 million pounds. City 'superwoman' Nicola Horlick has attacked US financial regulators after becoming a victim of a £33billion investment scam.
Glad I don't have money to lose on this scale.
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