By George Hay and Dominic Elliott

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Barclays needs a decisive, UBS-style change of direction. While rivals like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse saw revenue in fixed income, currencies and commodities spike in the third quarter, Barclays’ normally strong FICC business underperformed. Worse, the results also included two fresh regulatory probes. It shows why new chief executive Antony Jenkins should consider changes as radical in tone as UBS’s root-and-branch restructuring.

By George Hay

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Royal Bank of Scotland’s succession planning is attaining greater urgency. After recent milestones, Chief Executive Stephen Hester is on track to achieve his five-year turnaround plan by its 2013 deadline. Meanwhile, Vikram Pandit’s unceremonious ouster from Citigroup on Oct. 16 shows the wisdom of quitting while ahead. RBS’s board should put two and two together and prepare for life after Hester.

By George Hay

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Spain is doing its Don Quixote impression again. The troubled euro state’s latest attempt at shoring up trust in its imploding banking system was supposed to be the final one. Madrid was expected to pump enough capital in its lenders to lay concerns to rest. But the rosy assumptions chosen by the government are still too close to Cervantes’ ever-dreaming literary character.

By George Hay The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Anyone watching British TV in 2002 will probably remember Howard from the Sheldon branch. The bald, bespectacled bank teller at a new bank called HBOS tried to attract deposits by singing clumsily adapted pop songs. The nadir of this allegedly amusing commercial effort was undoubtedly “Who gives you extra?”, a parody of the Baha Men’s “Who let the dogs out?”. Like Howard, who rapidly became a star, HBOS was trying to be something it was not. “Hubris: How HBOS Wrecked the Best Bank in Britain”, Ray Perman’s timely guide to the bank’s spectacular 2008 demise, gives a comprehensive insight into what HBOS “extra” ended up being: an extremely unamusing forced takeover, and an 11.5 billion pound state recapitalisation.

HBOS should have succeeded. At its core was the venerable, 300-year-old Bank of Scotland, which used to conduct its affairs according to two simple rules. First, back loans with deposits of even longer maturity. Second, evaluate credit risk on whether a borrower could actually keep up payments, not on the value of his collateral. These principles served BoS well. Under former bosses Bruce Pattullo and Peter Burt in the 1980s and 1990s, the bank seemed to inhabit the promised land of retail banking: firm control of costs, strong capital, and returns on equity in excess of 20 percent. It didn’t last. BoS wanted to grow more without relying on flighty and sometimes expensive wholesale funding. The search for deposits led Burt into discussions with NatWest (where he lost out to Edinburgh rival Royal Bank of Scotland), Abbey National and, finally, Halifax.

By George Hay

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Martin Wheatley’s Libor reforms strike the right balance. Given the tidal wave of public anger in June when Barclays was shown to have attempted to fiddle the critical benchmark interest rate, the UK regulator could have recommended the London Interbank Offered Rate be scrapped entirely. His actual approach – reform rather than revolution – makes more sense.

By George Hay The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

So, farewell then, the British Bankers’ Association. The UK financial lobby group has signalled that it will not kick up a fuss should it lose its integral role setting and overseeing the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor. After a damaging global scandal in which it was revealed that banks routinely tried to fiddle the interest rate benchmark for trillions of dollars of international contracts, it’s an encouraging sign that reform will not be piecemeal.

It should come as no surprise that the BBA’s role is in jeopardy. The outrage that greeted the scandal shone a spotlight on the shortcomings of the Libor-setting process, which involves bankers submitting daily best estimates for 150 rates based on different maturities and currencies, overseen by a committee of more bankers. Martin Wheatley, the UK regulator due to report on the issue on Sept. 28, gave an indication of his thinking back in August: He described the current system as neither independent, robust, nor transparent.

By George Hay

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Spain remains intent on cutting corners on its long-awaited bank bailout. The country has been promised up to 100 billion euros to recapitalise its ailing lenders. It’s looking worryingly like it will try everything to minimise the headline number. The country’s government obviously doesn’t get that it must be conservative to be credible.