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Stephen Hall is Tax Partner at Deloitte »Last night's surprise move by RBS to give a six-month grace period to homeowners falling in to arrears on their mortgage repayments puts pressure on other lenders to follow suit.
It is thought that RBS's new chief executive Stephen Hester decided to make this concession to struggling customers without any direct interference from Government.
But there is no doubt that pressure has been growing on the banks - especially those in which the state now owns a large chunk - over recent weeks.
Which means it will be especially interesting to see what its rivals do today.
In particular, of course, we shall be seeing what Northern Rock has to say. Just a few weeks ago its new chief executive Gary Hoffman told the Treasury Select Committee that it would do all it could to keep its mortgage customers in their homes. Mr Hoffman also said the bank wanted to be at the vanguard of imaginative ways to achieve this.
So will the Rock follow suit? The likely outcome is that it will wait and see what actions its rivals take. But, with the Rock being the only fully nationalised bank, the pressure on it to act now will only grow.
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