UK banks want time to split retail businesses

London

BIG British banks are lobbying regulators for more time to carve out their retail lending from riskier parts of their business, saying that Britain's decision to leave the European Union has made the separation more complex and costly.

Lenders are required to complete the so-called ring-fencing of retail operations by the start of 2019. The initiative aims to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when banks' bad trading bets threatened to sink ordinary depositors and mortgage borrowers, leading to massive taxpayer-funded bailouts.