Barclays Bank

Banks will reveal salary details of their highest paid staff and lend businesses £190bn this year under Project Merlin, but their top earners will not be hit with a bonus tax, the government said today.

Barclays has reported a small rise in pre-tax profits in the third quarter as its investment banking business continued to slow.

Barclays shares are 3% lower in early trading despite posting profits of almost £4bn in the first half.

The UK's four major banks have passed EU stress tests, although five Spanish banks failed, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) said.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced a probe into parts of the investment banking industry.

Britain and France are at odds with other European Union countries over plans to insure against future bank failures, in another sign of the problems in trying to forge a common response to the bloc's economic woes.

The FTSE was steady at 5620.88 points this morning, despite rating cuts from brokers and a downbeat assessment on the UK economy by a major think-tank.

Barclays' pre-tax profit for Q1 soared by 47% on the same period last year to £1.82bn, helped by a reduction in bad debts.

Gordon Brown believes the large economies are close to agreeing a global tax on banks which would cost the financial sector billions of pounds a year - but he played down expectations of a final deal at the next G20 meeting in June.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been slapped with a £28.6m Office of Fair Trading (OFT) fine for breaching competition rules.