It will mean that we will have to have new standards of surveillance and supervision for global financial institutions." The government announced a momentous £500bn rescue of Britain's banking sector in October last year. Under the part-nationalisation scheme, £50bn of taxpayers' money was offered to banks to rebuild their capital reserves, £200bn of liquidity was made available as short-term loans in an attempt to thaw the frozen inter-bank lending markets and a further £250bn was offered to underwrite lending between banks – another attempt to shore up their balance sheets. Abbey, Barclays, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide building society, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered were among those to take part. Although the bail-out prevented high-street banks from collapsing it has so far failed to kick-start banks' lending normally again. The housing market has stalled and hundreds of businesses have gone bust as a result of the credit crunch.