It was forwarded by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King that as the U.K. financial system came to the brink of collapse,  two British banks got within hours of a liquidity shortfall on Oct. 6, 2008, and the day after. 

King was quoted saying today, "Two of our major banks which had had difficulty in obtaining funding could raise money only for one week then only for one day, and then on that Monday and Tuesday it was not possible even for those two banks really to be confident they could get to the end of the day."

King was actually referring to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HBOS Plc. On 8th October, 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government had ensured to invest nearly 50 billion ($82 billion) pounds in the banking system, with the aim of saving it from meltdown in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy declared that September.

The original release was corrected by BBC in order to inform that it was Lloyds TSB Group Plc, which was among the two banks in trouble, but in fact RBS. With the aim of forming Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Lloyds TSB took over HBOS Plc, the nation's biggest mortgage lender.