FAT profits from HSBC might have the bankers singing “happy days are here again” and thinking of big bonuses to come, but it is a different story for consumers and small businesses.

In the three years since the credit crunch began, the global banking system has managed to survive only thanks to the help given by western governments.

In the next two weeks we will be bombarded by propaganda that it is low demand for loans rather than any shortage of lending money that is the real problem. What poppycock!

Instead of making money available to small businesses, the banks are rewarding themselves. A picture emerges of bankers blindly pursuing their own interests.

How much longer can they be allowed to shirk their clear moral duty to put their clients first?

Colin Henson, Ullswater, York.