James Crosby, the former chief executive of failed lender HBOS, on Tuesday requested to be stripped of his knighthood and pledged to forgo nearly a third of his pension following a scathing report into the collapse of the mortgage giant.

HBOS was bought by Lloyds Banking Group in 2008 as the bank was sinking under a mountain of souring loans. Such was the scale of the losses, Lloyds needed a £20bn bailout from taxpayers.