COMPANIES Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS came within minutes of closing cashpoints and normal business operations, the Bank of England confirmed on Tuesday, revealing that it extended £61.6bn in emergency funds to the banks at the height of the financial crisis last year.
Paul Tucker, the Bank’s deputy governor, told the Treasury select committee: “If we hadn’t have done it, the [economic] cycle would have been a lot worse ...This was a dire emergency.”
