Institutions that hold trillions of pounds of clients’ assets in the UK have been given less than a year to achieve stricter separation of such assets from their own balance sheets. The Financial Conduct Authority is introducing the new rules to help clients get their assets back if an institution goes bust.

Ensuring that most client assets cannot be held in an institution's own accounts is intended to avoid a repeat of the mess created by the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, which led to more than three years' legal wrangling over client assets in the bank's European arm.