It was a matter of time before someone high up in the banking sector was sent down.

Kaupthing bosses have the dishonour of being the first -surely not the last- top bankers to go to prison for defrauding their company, their clients, their country and presumably too, the Tax Office.

But whilst this case may not be directly connected to Equity Release, it is clear that if someone at the bank came up with the brilliant idea of giving out a massive loan to a Middle East-based wealthy Arab to buy stock from the company, why not give smallish loans to owners of Spanish unencumbered property to invest, for instance, with Lex Life, the company Landsbanki owned?