Restoring Trust in Banking

It was great to sit down with Maggie Pagano of the Independent to talk about what we are doing to restore trust in banking.

First, the £134 billion the British taxpayer spent in rescuing the banks is being repaid. Second, bankers are being properly held accountable. Third, the rules are changing to protect the taxpayer from the reckless behaviour that took place in the run up to the financial crisis. Finally, we are promoting greater bank competition to improve the service for all customers.

I set out how so far we have recovered £53 billion from the different loan and asset protection schemes that were put in place. This includes £36 billion in repayments and capital loans, and £7.2 billion in interest fees as well as repayments from Icelandic banks, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley Building Society.

Maggie and I spoke quite widely, and you can read the entire interview here, but I very much enjoyed looking back at the personal victory at the end of last year the Icelandic Minister of Finance, Bjarni Ben, agreed to pay £1.36 billion from the Landsbanki estate in Iceland, which operated as Icesave in the UK.