glendo9013 Oct 2017 11:03
I think you are spot on - higher interest rates can have very significant effect
Bank makes large part of its gross profit from the difference between what it lends money out at and the rate it pays to depositers
Where it pays interest to depositers clearly that will rise .But a huge amount is held as credit balances on personal and business accounts where it pays nothing at all - so increase in rate is pure profit when those funds lent out .
One of the reasons for banks successes over in the past has been huge amounts of cash they have had deposited in current accounts , paid nothing on and then lent out .
Similarly that has caused problems last 6 years , because they became used to easy income from that source and then have not been able to lend most of it out at high rates .
Ignoring all other writeoffs etc - another problem being the huge income that was brought in from various lending insurance products ( business and personal ) that tap was switched off some years ago too - and indeed went other way with PPI compensation .
Truth of the matter is this and other banks have had to ren-enter the real business world without easy meal tickets
Some have done it better than others