Britain and America to hold ‘war games’ to test reaction to bank collapse

Top U.S. regulators and their British counterparts will hold “war games” Monday to rehearse how they would handle the failure of a huge financial firm with operations in both countries.

The Mail Online Reports: -‘Britain and America will hold ‘war games’ next week to test their response to the collapse of a major bank on either side of the Atlantic.

Chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England governor Mark Carney will join US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen in a Washington war room on Monday.

The simulated exercise will look at two scenarios – a major US bank with UK operations at risk and a major UK bank with US operations about to go under

Regulators are desperate to avoid a repeat of the financial crash when the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a crisis around the world.

This resulted in billions of pounds of taxpayers money being used to prop up stricken lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group.

Mr Osborne said: ‘We are going to make sure that we can handle an institution that previously would have been regarded as too big to fail. We’re confident that we now have choices that did not exist in the past,’

‘London is a global financial centre, and is both home and host to some of the world’s biggest and most important banks. This brings with it many opportunities for jobs and growth, but we need to make sure that taxpayers are not on the hook for future bank failures.’