Retail Banking

In a crisis where excessive credit is at the root of it all, RBS staff in Singapore are up to something that looks rather strange.

When you put the zeros on, 13.7 milliard looks like a lot of dollars. But out of the USD700 milliard awarded to the banks to stave off collapse, it's tiny. And the terms of the TARP deal are being redefined with every passing day.

For a lesson in growing by stealth, take a look at Lloyds Bank, the apparently sleepy little retail bank, which has been quietly beefing up whilst larger rivals were slugging it out on the international stage. And then, from nowhere, it's become the third biggest banking group in the UK.

Two of the UK's biggest and most venerable institutions are to be subsumed into Lloyds TSB after shareholders in HBOS voted in favour of a takeover.