{"id":43260,"date":"2026-05-21T04:07:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43260\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T04:07:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:07:25","slug":"bank-bosses-react-after-reeves-major-banking-rule-shake-up-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43260\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank bosses react after Reeves’ major banking rule shake-up | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chief executives of banking giants Santander UK and Natwest have spoken out after Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced sweeping rule changes<\/a> regarding lending and investment.<\/p>\n

The Treasury has set out plans to relax financial crisis-era ring-fencing rules<\/a> on banks in a bid to help increase lending. The reforms are designed to create a \u201cmore agile and proportionate\u201d regime for retail banks and would enable \u00a380 billion in additional lending to businesses, the Treasury said.<\/p>\n

It said that the changes would leave key protections unchanged. The move was warmly received by a raft of banks including NatWest<\/a> and Santander<\/a> on Monday. It is the latest policy change from the Chancellor aimed at easing red tape in a bid to increase investment to help drive further growth, despite concerns that this could lead to higher risk.<\/p>\n

Ring-fencing rules were strengthened after the 2008 financial crisis to ensure that problems in investment banking divisions did not spill into their high-street banking operations, in order to protect consumers.<\/p>\n

Mahesh Aditya, chief executive of Santander UK, said: \u201cThe proposed changes are a positive step in the right direction in helping strike the right balance between maintaining the strength and resilience of the UK financial system while also enabling banks to do even more to support growth, investment and jobs across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Thwaite, chief executive of NatWest Group, said: \u201cThese changes have the potential to increase lending and investment, in line with the Government\u2019s wider ambitions of helping to unlock growth for households and businesses in every region and nation of the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Economic secretary to the Treasury and city minister Rachel Blake said: \u201cWhere financial systems are inefficient, we will change them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese reforms will ensure more financing flows into UK businesses, and we can support growth and create jobs across the country. This will unlock finance for growth while keeping the UK banking system resilient, competitive and fit for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bank of England\u2019s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said it will consult on proposed reforms and publish its results this summer.<\/p>\n

The reforms will give the PRA more flexibility to update and tailor ring-fencing rules over time, instead of \u201crelying on rigid legislation\u201d.<\/p>\n

David Bailey, executive director for prudential regulation at the PRA, said: \u201cThe PRA\u2019s forthcoming consultation on shared services is designed to make the ring-fencing rules more proportionate, reducing the compliance costs for Britain\u2019s biggest banks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will allow banks more flexibility in the way they support their customers whilst retaining important protections for consumers\u2019 deposits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chief executives of banking giants Santander UK and Natwest have spoken out after Chancellor of the Exchequer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21386],"tags":[3343,254,9881,20345,21899,7955,5771,182,11748,6240],"class_list":["post-43260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-natwest","tag-barclays","tag-economy","tag-hsbc","tag-lloyds-bank","tag-money-saving","tag-natwest","tag-personal-finance-section","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-royal-bank-of-scotland","tag-santander"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116610599641619470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}