The Bank of England argues no bank is too small to resolve
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readThe Bank of England's Ruth Smith gave a UK perspective on bank resolution at the Florence School of Banking and Finance, addressing the Bank Resolution Academy at the European University Institute: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2026/september/ruth-smith-speech-florence-school-of-banking-and-finance-european-university-institute-florence.
The speech follows sessions on resolving medium-sized banks and the tools available in a resolution, and the framing is cooperative: resolution described as a team sport, with authorities learning from one another's viewpoints.
What it means
Medium-sized banks are the hard case, and the fact that a whole academy day went to them says so. The largest banks have bespoke plans, detailed loss-absorbing requirements and rehearsed counterparties. The smallest can be handled by a deposit payout. In between sits a category too large to pay out and too small to have been planned for individually - which is precisely where the recent failures that reshaped this debate occurred.
"None too small to resolve" is a claim about preparation, not about size. A regime that only works for banks it has studied individually is not a regime; it is a set of case files. Making resolution available to a bank nobody wrote a bespoke plan for requires standard tools, standard data, and the ability to value a book over a weekend - which is the unglamorous work these events exist to push.
⚠️ A speech at an academic event is a statement of perspective. No change to UK requirements, thresholds or tools is announced here, and the sessions it responds to were held under the host institution's programme rather than the Bank's.