Double trouble: UK banks face threat of twin ringfences

The post-crisis years have been punctuated by calls for big banks to be broken up. Nothing quite that dramatic is happening, but ring-fencing proposals in Europe – and a de facto fence around foreign banks in the US – are nudging the industry towards a similar outcome. By Michael Watt

For UK banks, ring-fences might be compared to buses – no sign of one for decades, then two come along at once. Unfortunately for them, this double ring-fence could mean double trouble.

In September 2011, the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) produced the Vickers report, which recommended the UK retail operations of domestic banks be fenced away from their trading activities by 2019, and subject to higher minimum capital requirements (Risk October 2011, pages 70–72). Just over a year