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The fundamental problem with banks is what it's always been: they're in the business of banking, and banking, whether plain vanilla or incredibly sophisticated, is inherently risky.

Whether or not you have good consumer protection has a big effect on safety and soundness of the banking community, especially smaller banks.

Banking is a very treacherous business because you don't realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm waters that deliver huge storms.

The real problem at the moment is that the banks - because of their existing culture, which is frankly anti-business, obsession with short-term trading profits, not focusing on the long term - are throttling the recovery of British industry.

You are as safe with me as you would be in the Bank of England.

It is probably the case that some regulation of financing will make crises less likely, and I would say higher capital requirements are an almost fail-safe way to make banks safer. But there are a lot of other things that may not be doing that, and so we need to be careful about sort of, like, rushing to one conclusion or another.

Instead of abandoning competition and giving banks protected monopolies once again, the public would be better served by making it easier to close banks when they get into trouble. Instead of making banking boring, let us make it a normal industry, susceptible to destruction in the face of creativity.

You want banks to take some risk, but intelligent risk.

I've spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the very best security and I can assure you my homes are as safe as the Bank of England.

We have put in place policies through supervision and regulation that has greatly enhanced the safety and soundness of the banking system.