A life ban? Is that all? Where are the police when you need them?;

I suppose we should celebrate the life ban from the financial services industry for an Aberdeen financial adviser who misused his clients' money - in one case paying off his overdraft.

Rather I'm dumbfounded. We have an army of storm-troopers at the Financial Services Authority who are supposed to stop this kind of thing happening. Is it because Aberdeen is so far from Canary Wharf?

Grampian police are hardly any better. Apparently they decided not to take action against Barry Scott, chief executive of Barum House Securities, after he used clients' money to pay off substantial overdrafts - largely because he has now left the UK and lives in New Zealand.

His firm had 500 clients. One investor lost (pounds) 65,000 when the money was used to pay off Scott's overdraft. The maximum compensation payable to defrauded investors is (pounds) 48,000. At best he has lost nearly (pounds) 20,000.

What do we pay our watchdogs and police force for? Theft is theft and it should be punished harshly.

The firm was a financial-adviser-cum-stockbroker. One of his associates, Lata Gaur, has also been banned for life for using clients' money to buy shares.

Her victims have been more fortunate. She traded through reputable firms, which have borne the loss. No lover of the financial industry, it does aggrieve me that reputable businesses are forced to pick up the tab for the crooked.

Me say anything nice about banks? Well sometimes, if you'll excuse the pun, we must give credit where credit is due.

I was sorry to miss the banking reporting season while on holiday, as I always like to be first with the news. So instead I shall take great pride in being the very last to comment on the results more than two weeks after everyone else. But better late than never, eh?

Didn't they do well, the two Scottish Banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBoS? RBS's profits climbed an exhausting 12% to (pounds) 6.5 billion while HBOS's leapt a daunting 22% to more than (pounds) 3bn.

In the normal course of things we don't like to see banks making huge profits, but they have done so in the face of the most competitive market for many years, and at a time of great financial and political upheaval. You only need to look at the dire performance of some of their London-based counterparts.

It will be interesting to watch how they maintain this momentum. Now the last nectar has been squeezed from the merger with NatWest, RBS will have to be nimble-toed to keep up growth, while the housing market poses the biggest threat to Halifax.

But the fortunes of any organisation rests not so much on the size of its challenges, but the quality of the management which will face them. I reckon we have some of the best banking teams in Europe operating out of Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, I will be joining join Good Morning Scotland's financial presenter Waseem Zakir on Tuesday morning. We'll be happy to help with your problems, queries or requests for information.

Copyright 2003 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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