It all started one day in 2008. After nearly 20 years in commercial banking it dawned on me that I no longer enjoyed my job. The credit crunch was at it’s height. At the time I worked for a major high street bank running a portfolio of really good business clients. That morning the bank issued a directive that we were to cease all property lending and advise clients that for the time being we had stopped lending for property. I had several clients who were waiting to complete on purchases, developers buying sites and businesses acquiring new premises. I had to break the news that the lending agreed had been pulled. If the client was left in a hole it was their hole, not ours. To me my clients were never just names and numbers, they were people. I knew many of them well, and their families and I was an integral part of their everyday lives. They trusted me and that trust meant a lot to me; I had worked hard for it and overnight it disappeared due to a change of company policy. I never blamed the bank for doing what they did; it was just what happened at the time across the industry. It was nothing personal. It really was an extraordinary time.
