Inside the Banking Crisis: The Untold StoryIt was one of the gravest challenges faced by any British government in peacetime. The banking system, taken for granted by most of the population to pay for life's essentials, came close to collapse. Yet nobody going about their business in October 2008 had any inkling how vulnerable the nation's financial infrastructure was. Nobody, that is, bar a small group of policymakers and ministers working frantically in Whitehall and the City of London. Royal Bank of Scotland, larger than the entire annual output of the UK economy, had toppled. Another banking giant Halifax/Bank of Scotland was in desperate need of a bailout. A staggeringly large bill had to be paid to stave off disaster. But could Britain afford it? Might foreign investors conclude that the UK's public finances could not take the strain and the game was up? Yet doing nothing might have seen cash machines closed, depositors panicking and troops on the streets. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Rock crumbles | 11 |
The Rock rescue | 29 |
Banks on the brink | 43 |
The financial storm breaks | 65 |
Britain on the brink | 85 |
Britain stands alone | 111 |
Battle for banking survival | 135 |
Banks struggle to rebuild | 157 |
Timeline | 179 |
Postscript | 209 |
213 | |
215 | |