(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Cable warned that some of Britain's big banks have been trying to argue against reforming the financial sector. He stated that the bankers' claim that the already sluggish growth of the British economy would receive further blows once the regulatory change takes effect is just a pretext to derail reform of the financial sector.
Cable's warnings come as the Independent Commission on Banking, led by John Vickers, is expected to call for the separation of banks' retail and investment arms in a report that is to be published on September 12.
However, British Bankers' Association's chief executive, Angela Knight, called for ministers to shelve such proposals and wait until the fragile economy grows stronger.
Moreover, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, John Cridland, criticized the plans, asserting that they would threaten the economic recovery by cutting the flow of credit to the economy.
“Taking action at this moment - this moment of growth peril, which weakens the ability of banks in Britain to provide the finance that businesses need to grow - is just, to me, barking mad,” said Cridland.
Nevertheless, Cable called the bankers' attempts to stop regulatory changes “disingenuous in the extreme,” saying that, “Banks are in a way trying to create a panic around something which they know has got to happen.”
"We can't have big global banks with balance sheets bigger than British GDP underwritten by the taxpayer; this can't go on and it has got to be dealt with," Cable said.
Moreover, in response to the bankers' claim that the government's intervention in the financial sector could result in a double-dip recession, Cable said that a general meltdown in the Western economies is the biggest threat.
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