Chancellor confirms plan to split banks
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Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Show yesterday, chancellor Alistair Darling says Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock will be broken up and sold off to encourage new entrants into the mortgage market.
He says this could result in three new high street banks in the UK over the next three to four years.
However, Darling did not give any timeframe as to when the banks will be sold off and says it will only consider it when the time is right and taxpayers will see a good return for their money.
Lloyds is understood to be looking to sell off TSB Scotland, Cheltenham & Gloucester and Intelligent Finance.
Tesco and Virgin are rumoured to be two of the firms that the government is considering to sell the broken banks to.
The banks’ assets will only be sold to new entrants into the market to help boost competition.
Darling says: “half a dozen big providers was not acceptable.”
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Readers' comments (1)
Anonymous | 17 Jan 2010 1:07 am
When the Banks where sold off in Iceland they crashed,people where on the brink of having no food,is Britain next.
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