(Sharecast News) - The UK's biggest lenders may be facing a huge windfall tax as the Chancellor casts about for ways to calm financial markets, City sources said. The target may be some of the interest payments due to be paid on the hundreds of billions of pounds in deposits placed with the Bank of England, through what is known as 'tiering', mainly to the likes of Lloyds, NatWest and HSBC. That might net the Treasury approximately £10bn, at a cost of a fifth of major UK lenders' annual profits, according to estimates from Numis. Nonetheless, the Treasury itself has played down the possibility of a shift towards tiering as it "risks damaging the UK's fiscal credibility". - The Financial Mail on Sunday
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