City watchdogs were monitoring cash withdrawals from Royal Bank of Scotland every hour during the height of the banking crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
The Financial Services Authority demanded 60-minute updates on cash flooding out of the bank's branches and hole-in-the-wall machines in the days before Britain's historic bank bailout, which took place a year ago.
The regulators stepped up their surveillance after realising that confidence was draining from the banking system following the collapse of Lehman Brothers a month earlier, and that customers were concerned about the safety of their deposits.
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, sanctioned the government's taking a 70% stake in RBS, and 43% in the combined Lloyds and HBOS, after a series of frantic round-the-clock meetings that weekend. A year on, those shareholdings are creating a £4bn paper loss for the government.
The taxpayer breaks even when Lloyds shares rise through 122.6p and those in RBS trade above 50.5p. On Friday, the banks' shares closed at 94p and 48.34p respectively.
The Guardian has learnt that a year ago the City regulator was so concerned about customers' fears over the soundness of RBS that withdrawals on the high street were being scrutinised hourly, as well as the activities of big business and rival banks, which were also losing confidence in the troubled bank.
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