trust issue was offered.

Regulatory innovations which allowed the TSBs to diversify their business threatened to erode the deposit base of the clearing banks. But this potential diversification was limited by the restrictive central control of the Exchequer, the National Debt Commissioners and the Trustee Savings Bank Inspection Committee. This type of central control had been designed both to guarantee depositors that the savings banks would remain a secure alternative for their deposits and, by standardising general interest rates