Letter: The secretive bank

Steve Lodge ("Listening banks?", Business, 15 September) writes about the refusal of banks to prepare statements that allow the account holder readily to identify the payees of cheques. They often do not give enough information about the source of credits either.

Nationwide Building Society will not tell me the source of a credit that appeared in my account in July unless I pay pounds 5. Without that information I cannot tell if the money is income, so cannot fill in my tax return with any confidence.

Deciding whether to cough up a fiver or simply carry on in ignorance, hoping the credit is not taxable after all, is the equivalent of that card in Monopoly that says: "Pay a pounds 5 fine or take a Chance."

Joe Boswell

joe@bigbad.demon.co.uk