Everyone’s wearing brown trousers over at financial giant Lehman Brothers where a drying up of work saw shares fall 76% last week - £2.2bn to you and me. All the greater the doff of the bowler hat then to our own Co-operative Bank. They have seen profits up on last year, growth in their 5.5million customer base, and significantly cut their “bad debts” (the cheap mortgage lending that got the markets into this mess to begin with). The bank has always capitalised on its ethical credentials, which has made it stand out, but the big boss David Anderson says the happy days at Co-op are also down to thinking outside the box: in-store banking at their supermarkets; and the creation of a Co-op master brand to allow it to trade across all its businesses. We ran into them at the Sheffield Uni fairs this year, and they’re worth talking to if you see them doing the rounds at the Career Fairs this autumn.

The headline grabbing ninnies who claimed that the City could see as many as 20,000 jobs go in the name of the credit crunch have put on their “I told you so” T-shirts this morning as 1,200 jobs are hanging by a thread at the London HQ of German investment bank Dresdner Klienwort. But is this really a credit crunch catastrophe? The fact is that another German giant, Commerzbank is on the brink of a takeover of DK – and the two banks have been Germanically proficient in telling the world that as many as 9000 staff posts from the current 67,000 may be made redundant. Its business, not recession: the investment banking arm of DK has been losing money for four quarters in a row so it’s understandable that a shake up is in order – well, something’s not working. As in most mergers, it’s the support staff that get hit, where it doesn’t make sense to double up certain roles – in this case, IT workers are expected to take an early bath. Don’t write off Commerzbank or the private banking side of DK – Kleinwort Benson (already ranked in the top 10 UK banks) – mergers mean scale, and scale often means security.

A computer has been sold on eBay for £35 that contained details for 1 million Royal Bank of Scotland and Natwest customers on the hard drive, including in some cases account details, customers’ signatures, mobile phone numbers and mothers’ maiden names. American Express are also rumored to be involved. Such equipment is meant to be disposed of securely and completely – not hocked off to third parties. Data processing company Mail Source, which is part of the archiving firm Graphic Data, said it was investigating how the computer equipment had been removed from a secure location.  Last year the Financial Services Authority fined the Nationwide Building Society £980,000 for a security breach, after a laptop containing customer data was stolen from an employee’s home.

Forget tea leaves, if you want to know the future, look at your kebab…A survey of 161 City financial services firms found 63% expect their industry to suffer further pain. Of course everyone ignores the 37% in a positive mood. Honestly: in the USA they keep positive – here the recession is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, while the press report 45% of hiring managers think recruitment activity will fall, let me point out the 55% majority don’t agree. In fact 16% predict an increase in recruitment. If you really want to know what the future holds, keep your eye on Germany’s doner kebab industry. Economist Dieter Schubert says: “In the past 20 years, downturns in the global economy have always been predicted by prices rises in doner kebabs in Germany.” True enough, the doner prices are up and sales are down. If you can’t stand the heat…

With banks firing and crying and moaning and balling, its no wonder that it takes someone from traditionally outside that sector to tear it up: Tesco Personal Finance was a joint venture between the supermercardo and the Royal Bank of Scotland. But the former has bought the latter out now for £950m – giving the RBS a much needed £500m profit to play with. The task for the new team at Tesco Bank is to double annual profits from £450 to over £1bn by offering simple banking products with broad appeal. Let’s face it, you do associate Tesco with consistency and affordability so its not a bad brand to start from. You also associate them with being everywhere and crapping on the competition from a great height – more nice attributes for the people looking after your money. With no exposure to the US mortgage crisis that got the competition into this mess to begin with, £1bn profits don’t seem that far fetched.