COLUMNISTS As false markets go, the Bank of England’s year-long concealment of what was at one point a £61.6bn line of emergency finance to two of the UK’s largest banks will take some beating.
Between October 2008 and January this year, when the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS facilities had both finally been repaid: a prospectus was published for the Lloyds-HBOS merger; HBOS bonds were sold, RBS shares were issued; and countless other transactions were performed by investors in banks such as Barclays, whose health depended on the survival of RBS and HBOS.
