Argos and catalogue lender goes bust

London Scottish Bank has gone into receivership (H/T Guido). Most of you won't have heard of it - but it was the bank behind Morses Club, which offered unsecured loans from £100 to £1,000 and Argos and Homebase cards and the finance behind Kays and Great Universal catalogue lending. With a branch network strong in Scotland and the North of England that employed around 2,000 staff and had around 220,000 customers, this collapse will leave thousands of poorer families without minor credit this Christmas. Not a good thing.