Britain is right to examine the possibility of splitting up the part-nationalised banks Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, the chief executive of the Office of Fair Trading said yesterday. "I agree that consideration should be given to it," John Fingleton told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee. "I am not opining on what should be done. It is a question which should not go unanswered."

The Consumer Champion?

Bob Diamond, the banana who runs Barclays, must have promised himself to be as boring as possible in front of the Treasury Select Committee. He succeeded spectacularly with one lapse. His answer to all questions contained a mix and match of the following: resolution and recovery process with capital rules on the architectural changes of the integrated universal banking model going forward. It's a fridge magnet game and the winner gets £100m. Well done, Bob. All that good work went to nought with his observation that bankers should stop apologising for the crash. That met with a united response. Maybe he'll turn down his bonus.

Bob Diamond's bag carrier?

Re-branding has has become anew-year theme. Last week Starbucksannounced that it was changing its logo, ditching the lettering on its coffee cups. And yesterday Goldman Sachs revealed plans to launch a new ethics committee that will ask not just "Can we?" but also "Should we?" Think less vampire squid and more cuddly puppy.

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond today pledged to show restraint over banker pay, but told MPs big bonuses were here to stay if the sector was to succeed.

The City watchdog said yesterday that it might be prepared to publish previously secret results of its investigation into events leading up to the rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland.

So he has succeeded where Vince Cable and George Osborne failed?

The chairman of Parliament's influential Treasury Select Committee has added his voice to calls for the release of the details of a Financial Services Authority investigation into the rescue of the Royal Bank Scotland.

EU financial services chief Michel Barnier accused bankers of "blackmail" for threatening to quit the City for more friendly regulatory regimes in Asia at a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee.

Britain's two state-backed "zombie" banks yesterday rejected calls for a break-up of Britain's banking giants, telling the Treasury Select Committee that the sector was "enormously competitive".

A dissolution of the eurozone is highly unlikely but is not in the realms of impossibility, a top official at the Office for Budget Responsibility told MPs yesterday.