Bufferoverflow re ibwt.co.uk - the idea is sound but the technology is ancient and insecure: sending cash!?! by post!?! waiting days for it to credit the account assuming somebody at the Post Office hasn't stolen it!?

As other replies have said, the arrogance of UK banks is astonishing and does to a fair extent mirror the same attitude from the 50s and 60s in British manufacturing (particularly cars and motorbikes): despising the customer, producing shoddy goods/services, resting on their laurels until it's too late and the industry/service has moved abroad.

The key adjective I placed before cartel re UK banks was "informal". Despite their crass stupidity when it comes to dealing with other people's money the CEOs etc. at UK banks won't want to spend any time in jail or cough up any of their own ill gotten gains so the way to ensure that they do this is by always matching each other, give or take a few days, when it comes to setting interest rates, offers etc. so that there is no real competition between banks but there is also no smoking gun in the form of phone calls, meetings or e-mails that would give away that they are running a cartel. The same applies to UK energy companies (the big 6) who amazingly all increase (but never decrease, no matter the wholesale price) their electricity or gas prices to consumers and petrol retailers. The cartels learnt their lesson long ago (e.g. when Virgin blew the whistle on British Airways, Virgin Atlantic)and others forming a UK airline cartel).

The banks also have the supposed regulators (previously FSA, now Bank of England) actually doing their work for them instead of protecting consumers which is doubly ironic. The regulators pretend to do something about the banks (levying pitifully small fines compared with turnover) whilst making absolutely sure that the bar is set so high that there can be no new entrants to the supposed "market" - witness the appalling obstacles placed in the way of "The Bank of Dave" aka Burnley Savings and Loans Ltd - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjLEiR05o0I).

It's not just the banks to be fair, I used to work in the Energy Industry and having visited OFGEM's fabulously expensive HQ in London and witnessed how they fawned over the representatives of nPower etc. it's clear who's the puppet is and whose hand it is shoved up their backside.

I'd be happier if the banks, energy suppliers, petrol companies etc. were to just come clean and say "Look, you're all little people who we can't stand but we do want your money to fund our excessive pay packets so just hand over the dosh" - it would at least be honest.

I just think it's absolutely crazy as to how difficult it is to buy Bitcoins in the UK compared with other countries. I've bought via Localbitcoins and the transaction went well but as I used UK Bank Transfer both I and the seller were likely breaking the terms and conditions of our respective banks.

Compare the volumes traded in China, USA and the Eurozone with Great Britain and it's clear we're getting left behind, e.g. last 24 hours USD trading on Mt Gox=$39,019,136 in UK Mt Gox=£552,290. Normalising with current exchange rate and populations these figures equate to approximately $0.12 and $0.01 per head of population in the USA and UK respectively. Even assuming that the US trades include a fair number of non-US citizens the difference is significant.

Thanks to the informal cartel of the UK banks, who like the Mafia always want to dip their beaks in any transaction but at least the Mafia are known criminals unlike the banks (who take taxpayer money when they screw up after having fleeced us with PPI, LIBOR fixing and excessive charges or as RBS are now doing in closing down and asset stripping small businesses), individuals are prevented from participating in financial markets until the banks can get their pound of flesh. Then you get the apologists for the bankers claiming that RBS are "only" asset stripping "zombie" businesses. At least they're undead - RBS was dead, buried and bankrupt before it fleeced UK taxpayers for £163 billion.

I'll stop now before I get even more annoyed...