The UK banking sector is the third largest in the world after the US and
Japan. In addition to having one of the largest commercial banking industries,
the UK is also a major international center for investment and private banking.
The UK banking sector’s strong international orientation is reflected in the
substantial foreign presence and sizeable assets of foreign banks in London.
Virtually all of the world's leading banks have investment and commercial
banking offices in the City of London.
The number of authorized banks in the UK totaled to about 690 in 2004. Although the
number of UK incorporated banks declined over the past decade there was a
significant increase in their average size and financial strength. The total
number of authorized banks increased largely due to the growing presence of
European Economic Area (EEA) banks.
British banking has been highly consolidated since the early 20th century.
And this consolidation increased over the past several years. According to market capitalization, the following are the top six UK banks:
·
HSBC bank
·
Barclays
·
Standard Chartered
·
Royal Bank of Scotland Group
·
Lloyds Banking Group
·
Co-Operative bank
As
expected in a consolidated segment, the UK government owns a controlling stake of 70% of the Royal Bank of
Scotland Group and 43% stake of Lloyds Banking Group. However, the functioning
of both these banks remains independent of the government. The government controls the National Savings and
Investments bank and Northern Rock that was
nationalized in 2008, after it was faced with bankruptcy.
Unlike some other
major economies, the UK does not have a major stratum of independent local
banks. All independent specialized and local banks combined constitute just a
small fraction of the size of the smallest of the top six banks.
The other main class
of consumer financial service organisation in the United Kingdom used to be the
building society. Building societies are mutual organizations owned by
their members. Their main business activity is mortgage finance. In 1980s -
1990s the majority of them, including the biggest ones Abbey National and Halifax Building
Society, converted into joint stock banking
companies, and subsequently were acquired by other banks. The largest of the
remaining building societies is Nationwide.
Responsibility for
the authorization and supervision of banks passed from the Bank of England (central
bank of the UK) to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in June 1998.
The Financial
Services Authority is an independent non-governmental body which exercises
statutory powers under the Financial
Services and Markets Act. The FSA must report annually on the
achievement of its statutory objectives to the Treasury, which is required to
lay the report before Parliament. The FSMA requires the FSA to pursue four
objectives: to maintain confidence in the UK financial system; to promote
public understanding of the financial system; to secure an appropriate degree
of protection for consumers whilst recognizing their own responsibilities; and
to reduce the scope for financial crime.
The Bank of England
is responsible for maintaining overall stability of the financial system as a
whole. Since its responsibilities for supervising individual banks were
transferred to the FSA, the financial stability role of the Bank has been to
focus on identifying and limiting systemic financial risk. This involves close
monitoring of the financial system infrastructure, particularly payments
systems and monitoring economic and financial market developments.
There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the FSA, HM Treasury and
the Bank of England which explains how the three authorities should work
together towards the common objective of financial stability.
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