Banks to toe Government line

While Barclays makes further provisions for mis-selling, this time to the corporate sector over Interest Rate Swaps, George Osborne has said that the Bank of England will have new powers to police banks who have the power to cause huge financial disruption, as has happened in 2007.

The idea is to have two distinct areas within a bank. The first will be involved in pure banking where the accounts and basic lending takes place and incidentally where the mis selling would also, the second area housing the dealing rooms, known as the Investment bank. This is where the big bets are placed and the ever more complex deal are constructed, to increase the banks profits and of course the trader's bonus.

In addition to establishing the mechanism for keeping an eye on errant behaviour, it will also be made much easier to switch accounts from the major financial institutions that currently control the lion's share of the consumer and business bank accounts in this country.