Lloyds: which way out?

It’s good that banks are feeling better about themselves. Lloyds Banking Group is even showing something of a swagger. It is considering scaling back participation in the government’s asset protection scheme. The idea is to substitute some of the toxic-loss insurance with fresh capital from private shareholders. Lloyds provisionally agreed to have UK taxpayers protect £260bn of its assets in March, with the bank taking the first £25bn hit and the government absorbing 90% of any additional losses...