BRITAIN’S banks have less than two months to commit to speedier cheque and payment clearing or they will be forced into reform by legislation, The Times has learnt.

With almost every UK bank reporting record profits, ministers are understood to have lost patience with the slow progress and want to see real commitment from an official task force, due to report in April. An informed source said: “If they fail to show progress then they get a regulator and legislation.”

The task force, created last April under the auspices of the Office of Fair Trading, consists of clearing bank payment organisations, including APACS, as well as consumer and business groups.

Some members are already frustrated by the lack of progress. Which?, formerly the Consumers’ Association, yesterday threatened to walk out if the task force failed to secure real commitment from the banks with a timetable.

Lawrence Baxter, a senior policy adviser at Which?, who sits on the task force, told The Times: “If we get to April without getting some kind of commitment from the banks, we will seriously consider leaving the task force. If we are not satisfied there’s no point in continuing in a process that’s not delivering anything.”

He claimed that he had some support from other user groups on the task force, including the National Consumer Council, the British Retail Consortium, the Federation of Small Business and the British Chambers of Commerce. “We all have the same concerns,” he said.

Support for faster action also came yesterday from Norman Lamb, MP, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, who said the size of bank profits reported over the past few days strengthened the case for faster action. “Now is the time, on the back of these substantial profits, to commit to setting a target (on faster clearing) and achieving it,” he said.

HSBC reported a 33 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to $17 billion (£8.8 billion) yesterday, putting the British banks on course for aggregate profits of more than £30 billion.

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