Merlin Project pledges made by the biggest players

1 As expected, the biggest British banks (RBS, HSBC. Lloyds and Barclays) plus Santander will commit to make £190bn available to business in 2011, up from £179bn in 2010. The Treasury hopes they will exceed lending targets.

2 Of this lending commitment, 76bn will be made available for smaller businesses, which represents an increase of 10bn or 15% in credit available to SMEs in 2010. This is probably the most important commitment in Merlin.

3 The Bank of England will monitor whether the funds are being made available to businesses and will publish quarterly assessments.

4 Among the performance targets used to determine bonuses of chief executives will be whether they are providing the promised credit to business (this in broad terms is already the case for Stephen Hester at RBS).

5 The chairmen of banks' remuneration committees are writing to the FSA warranting that they are cutting 2010 bonuses as a consequence of negotiations with ministers.

6 In their coming results, the 'Merlin' banks will publish the pay of their five highest paid executives below board level. The pay of board members already has to be disclosed.

7 The government will legislate so that from 2012 all big banks in the UK will have to publish the pay of their board members plus the eight highest paid executives below board level. This n will apply to the UK operations of overseas banks.

8 The remuneration committees of big British banks will commit to signing off the pay of the ten highest paid individuals in each business division.

9 The banks are providing 200m of capital for David Cameron's cherished Big Society Bank, which is supposed to finance community projects.

10 The banks are providing 1bn of equity capital over three years for small businesses in hard-pressedareas, on top of the 1.5bn they have pledged over ten years.