Vickers report to be accepted in full - Vince Cable

The government will accept the Vickers report into banking "in full", Business Secretary Vince Cable has told the BBC. The Vickers report recommended separating a bank's retail business from its investment business. Mr Cable told the Andrew Marr show: "We are going to proceed with the separation of the banks." On Monday, the Chancellor George Osborne gives a statement to parliament, after the government publishes its response to the report. Chaired by Sir John Vickers, the Independent Commission on Banking published its report in September into ways of avoiding bank failures in the future. It recommended that a bank's retail business should be ring-fenced from its investment business, with this and other recommendations being implemented by 2019. There has been widespread support for a government-backed commission that has recommended UK banks ring-fence retail from investment banking. The Vickers report said it would "make it easier and less costly to resolve banks that get into trouble". Separate entities The report recommends that ring-fenced banks should be the only operations granted permission by the UK regulator to provide "mandated services", which include taking deposits from and making loans to individuals and small businesses. It says that the different arms of banks should be separate legal entities with independent boards. Another of the ICB's recommendations is that banks must have a buffer to absorb the impact of potential losses or future financial crises - of at least 10% of domestic retail assets in top-quality form, such as shares or retained earnings. That is a stiffer target than the 7% recommended by the international Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. It also says the biggest banks should go further than this and have a safety cushion of between 17% and 20% of assets, made up of highest-quality assets topped up with bonds that can be easily converted to equity. The business lobby group, the CBI, has said this would not help business. The commission also recommends that steps should be taken to make it simpler to switch bank accounts, something that was welcomed by the CBI. The ICB wants a free current account redirection service to be formed by September 2013, with an improved system to catch all credits and debits going to a customer's old, closed account, including automated payments on debit cards and direct debits.