http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19775686

Yeah, of course you will... And you might wanna start focusing on more bread and butter issues - PR-wise, the banks can kick themselves in the arse all day long safe in the knowledge that people like you will never do anything about the underlying issues

It must be done, but the problem is that they are also too big. Not just the casino banking as part of regulated banks. Separating casino banking from banks is a start then break up the deposit taking banks. We need lots of banks and ban them from merging again.

If people dislike the way banks behave, they should move to a building society. As least they're not aiming to please shareholders or dabbling in dodgy trading.

Problem is that they do not all have current accounts. Plus I would like to see a world where banks are blocked from the residential mortgage market so prices fall. If you can only get a mortgage from building societies it will end the 100% mortgage. It will encourage savings again.

Prices would fall if they went back to the old rules. There was a fixed maximum of (something like) 3 x annual income of the main earner, plus 1 x annual income of a second buyer.
Nothing like the 5 x annual income of a single buyer that you can get these days.

Although I'm not convinced those offers are available anymore. What we have now is a stalemate between buyers who can't afford and sellers who won't drop the price. The only thing preventing a crash is low interest rates meaning that those with mortgages can afford them and are not forced to sell.

That should be the maximum terms for mortgages. If it means house prices fall that will be great for first time buyers.

Not sure who this would actually help?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Lehman Brothers was an investment bank and its collapse still [LIFTED] things up pretty badly.

Since deposits are partially guaranteed by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme anyway (the amount guaranteed also seems to increase radically), what will this actually achieve?

The problem was that other banks had investment banking arms and so were heavily exposed to Lehmans. That was why the crisis was so bad. If the investment banks were isolated again then if they imploded they do not risk tax payers money.

I have read a report that identifies the real risks at banks like JP Morgan. They have such a large derivatives book that if you do not net it off because of counter party risks that shows that the bank has only capital of 3% whereas they are supposed to have more than 10% and rising even more with the new Basel III accord. If the banks were split up this would mean that the investment bank would probably collapse under the risk of debt and derivatives. At the moment that is being held up by the fact that it is in a big deposit taking bank.