The first banks to receive money under the UK government's bank rescue scheme could do so as soon as Monday morning.
The banks and the Treasury are working on announcements to be made before the markets open, according to BBC business editor Robert Peston.
He says the first banks to take up the recapitalisation are likely to be HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
A key aspect of the announcements will be what the government requires the banks to do in return for the cash.
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These could involve curbing executive pay and resuming normal lending to individuals and small businesses.
'Case-by-case'
The government has said that it will negotiate terms individually with each bank that participates in the scheme.
"What we're doing now is talking with all of the banks about how we implement the programme," Yvette Cooper, chief secretary to the Treasury told the BBC.
"We'll set out the sort of strings that will be attached on a case-by-case basis," she added.
The chief executive of RBS, Sir Fred Goodwin, is expected to resign to be replaced by Stephen Hester, the former finance director of Abbey who is currently chief executive of British Land.
Earlier in the year, RBS raised Ј12bn from its shareholders, which is now more than the bank is worth on the stock exchange.
Hefty falls
Banks trying to raise new capital as part of the scheme may choose to approach their own shareholders again instead of taking part of the government's Ј50bn.
If they go to their existing shareholders for funding, the government has said it will underwrite the issues, which means that if all of the shares on offer are not sold then it will step in and buy them.
That may mean that the government ends up holding normal shares in the banks instead of the preference shares that were previously thought to have been involved.
The difference is that normal shares carry voting rights while preference shares do not, but preference shareholders, as the name suggests, get access to any money that a company makes before the normal shareholders.
If the agreements are reached ahead of trading on Monday morning, it will be just another factor for investors to take into account following the huge falls on stock markets last week.
The FTSE 100 in London fell 21.1% during the week, its worst weekly fall since the crash of 1987.
The Dow Jones in New York fell 18% in the week while the Dax in Frankfurt fell 21.6%.
(BBC)
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