12.09.2011 - 08:44 [ Bloomberg ]

Banks in U.K. Should Shield Consumer Units From Financial Crisis

Banks with consumer and securities units will have to separately capitalize them by 2019 under proposals made today in a 360-page report by the Independent Commission on Banking. The plans will cost as much 7 billion pounds ($11 billion), the report said. U.K. bank shares fell.

“The commission believes that ring-fencing would achieve the principal stability benefits of full separation but at lower cost to the economy,” the commission said in the statement. “The U.K. retail subsidiaries would be legally, economically and operationally separate.”