Banks face Britain's ring-fence hurdle in hiring directors

London

BRITAIN'S major lenders may find it hard to hire dozens of directors that are required as part of a radical reshape of the industry aimed at protecting it from future investment bank crashes.

Britain wants banks such as HSBC, Barclays and the UK arm of Spain's Santander to ring fence their retail units from their wholesale operations, including creating a separate board for their retail divisions that would be independent of the parent group.

But the banks may struggle to fill these boards because the dir…