20/03/2008

Market Crisis Sparks Bank Chiefs Summit

Britain's major bank chiefs will hold crisis talks today with Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King.

The discussion is likely to address yesterday's stock market drama that caused one high street lender's share price to crash by almost 20%.

The Financial Services Authority has launched an inquiry into whether or not a 'whispering campaign' was the reason for the dramatic drop in share values.

The banks will seek assurance from Mr King that help will be provided in the event of any cash shortage.

Angela Knight, Chief Executive of the British Bankers Association, told the BBC's Today programme: "The Bank of England is very keen to ensure that we have good strong confidence in all our market - after all we've got good strong banks."

The bank which suffered the shares crash, HBOS has denied rumours of funding difficulties.

A HBOS spokeman said: "A number of ill-founded and malicious rumours abut the UK banking system in the markets.

"These rumours have not a shred of substance whatsoever. They are just lies."

The FSA said in a statement: "There has been a series of completely unfounded rumours about UK financial institutions in the London market over the last few days, sometimes accompanied by short-selling."

HBOS closed 7% down in London yesterday. The FTSE 100 Index ended up 60.2 points down at 5545.6.

The global credit crunch began last summer with news of multi-million dollar bad debts in the US mortgage sector. The impact of that has made banks around the world less willing to lend to each other.

(DS)


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