September 24, 2007 (LPAC)--Northern (sinking) Rock, the collapsing British mortgage lender borrowed no less than 3 billion pounds from the Bank of England, but this is still not enough to fill the enormous hole on the Bank's books. According to the Independent they are desperately trying to find buyers for millions of pounds worth of the commercial paper that comes due over the next weeks. The bank, which has on its books 100 billion pounds in assets, has to find another 3 billion pounds to refinance that much paper by March of next year.

Panicked depositors have already withdrawn over 4 billion of the 24 billion pounds the bank had in deposits.

Despite the fact that it's a basket case living off the British tax payer, it is determined to make a payout of 60 million pounds to its investors, more than 14.2 pence per share, or 30% higher then last year, an intention that has quite a few people up in arms since it was bailed out, in effect, through tax payers money. If the bank, which has been consulting with lawyers on the issue, decides not to do so, it must notify shareholders by Sept. 28.

It has also come to light that Northern Rock has continued to offer "its entire mortgage loan range during the past week,"- including high risk mortgages. An investigative team of The Times discovered that the bank is still lending recklessly. One journalist, posing as a would be mortgage seeker was offered a 180,000 pound mortgage despite the fact that he said he made only 30,000 pounds as an annual salary.