Jim Spowart thought his career in banking and finance was drawing to a close, until HBOS, one of his former employers, found itself on the end of a bid from Lloyds TSB. “I was trying to quieten down,” he told The Times yesterday. “I guess I thought I was winding down into retirement.”

However, the past few weeks have been anything but quiet for the 57-year-old. First, he helped to hatch an abortive plot involving senior Scottish banking figures to rescue Bank of Scotland. Then last weekend, he found himself being asked by a foreign institution to broker a possible counterbid for the whole of HBOS.

Mr Spowart grew up near the coalmines of Fife, and when he left school he had to choose between going down the pit or joining a bank. He joined National Commercial Bank, later to become part of Royal Bank of Scotland, and after laying the blueprint for its telephone banking services, became the managing director of Direct Line Financial Services. Having taken Direct Line into savings and mortgages, he approached Standard Life with the idea of setting up a new type of telephone bank selling more flexible products. In a similar vein, he joined the Halifax in 1999, launched Intelligent Finance (IF) the following year, taking 10.4 per cent of the UK internet mortgage market within 18 months.

He quit in 2003 after the Halifax, now part of HBOS, decided to put IF's international expansion on hold pending an economic recovery.

His next move was to launch Peopleschampion.com, a price comparison website, which became a household name in Scotland thanks to a television campaign featuring talking geese, zebras, tortoise and pigs. Two years ago, he and his co-founders sold an 80 per cent stake to SMG, the media group. When SMG bought the remaining 20 per cent a few months ago, he decided to leave.

Since then, Mr Spowart has acted as a consultant to some Polish banks, but had been planning to spend more time playing golf and visiting his house in Portugal. Last night, however, he said that if the mooted bid for HBOS from the mystery suitor materialised, he expected to become part of a new board, which could mean the married father-of-two has to put his plans for a quieter life on hold.