At its obligatory roasting by the Trea-sury Select Committee this week, Britain's financial regulator was accused of "being responsible for supervising ten big banks and allowing five to collapse". In response, the boss of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner, promised a "revolution" at his organisation.rnThat is not far off what is taking place north of the border, at Royal Bank of Scotland (rbs), the most spectacular of those failures. Two bail-outs have left rbs majority state-owned. On Thursday, amid furore over his discredited predecessor's lavish and now taxpayer-funded pension, itsrnnew boss, Stephen Hester, provided details on plans to break up the group. He also described rbs's probable use of the government's asset-guarantee scheme, which will soon be rolled out to other banks as well. For good measure Mr Hester also announced the largest loss in British corporate history.
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