The UK's four biggest banks – HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds – have changed radically since 2007. They are now more dependent on interest income and have retrenched huge parts of the once lucrative investment banking business in favour of more traditional businesses, such as retail and commercial banking.
The banks also have much higher capitalisation – the four now hold $369.18bn in Tier 1 capital, $92.45bn more than in 2007 – along with significant provisioning for legal and regulatory issues along with customer redress.
