The marketing departments at troubled banks obviously have their fingers crossed that they will still have a job – and are letting their hopes filter through into their copywriting.
Consider these pieces of junk mail, which plopped through the letterbox on Saturday:
From Citigroup comes something which could have been penned by Vikram Pandit himself:
Financial workout. Healthy future.
The markets fear Citi will have far more of the former than the latter, but the marketing people are still pitching their “great range” of bank accounts.
From Lloyds TSB, part of the troubled Lloyds Banking Group now 43 per cent owned by the British government, comes some truly wishful thinking: “For the journey back to normal…” it headlines its unenticing insurance offer. If only Lloyds were taking steps on such a journey.