• Miliband: Labour would create two new banks and cap market share
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[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25764261[/url] [quote]The UK's five largest banks are too powerful and should be forced to give up "significant" numbers of branches, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said. He argued financial services have been "an incredibly poor servant of the real economy" for decades and should be "serving" the needs of small business. A Labour government would "turn the tide" by creating two "challenger" banks to boost High Street competition. But the Conservatives said Labour's policies were "all over the place". The "big five" banks - HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Santander and Lloyds Banking Group - account for the majority of bank customers and lending. In his speech at the University of London, Mr Miliband likened the "broken" banking system to the energy market, claiming "too much power is concentrated in too few hands" and this has had a detrimental effect on enterprise and jobs. A Labour government, he said, would instruct the Competition and Markets Authority to report within six months of the May 2015 general election what the limit on a bank's market share should be and the timetable for any sell-off of branches, which should be completed by 2020.[/quote]
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