This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of the most basic structure of banking that even I cannot believe that Gordon Brown wrote that.
Sure, there have been debates over technical details, inevitable given the unique structure of national banking systems.
The first is that this represents a big climbdown for the chancellor - which re-opens the entire question of the best structure for UK banking, and so creates a lot of new uncertainty for British banks.
First, privatisation in any form feels a fairly remote prospect at the moment, with the future structure of British banking yet to be decided by the Treasury, subject to final recommendations from the Independent Commission on Banking in September.
And to add a bit of spice to the proceedings, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking (the uber-committee investigating the City) will publish a report that very morning entitled Banking Reform: Towards the Right Structure.
He said that if this was not forthcoming, that would suggest the structure of the UK banking sector, with its small number of giant providers, was at fault and that a referral to the Competition Commission would be one way of investigating this.
All inquiries concluded that there was a lack of competition in the provision of personal banking services, which made the charging structure difficult for customers to understand and switching accounts an uncertain process.
Another obstacle to effective consolidation is the structure of continental Europe's banking systems.
Alas, it may not, thanks to the third reason for the banks' malaise: the fragmented structure of Germany's domestic banking market.
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We are also working with our banking partners and bondholders to ensure we have a capital structure that will enable Suntech to be successful in the current challenging industry environment.
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The ring-fence structure makes a distinction between the bits of banking that need saving (deposit-taking banks, payment systems and the like) and the bits that do not (bonus-gorging investment bankers).
Because the Co-Op would become so large in the sensitive business of taking deposits, with care of tens of billions of pounds of savings for many millions of customers, it would be forced to change its corporate structure and governance, and dedicate more capital to banking, to protect depositors from losses.
The forthcoming Banking Reform Bill would bring "far-reaching, lasting change to the structure of British banks", he vowed.
The bill will replace the so-called tripartite structure, introduced by the previous Labour government, under which oversight of the banking system is shared between the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Treasury.
Recently, Netherlands banking firm ING announced that social, environmental and ethical components would form part of its top management executive pay structure.
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