The chairman of Barclays was summoned for urgent talks with the Bank of England (BoE) over a secret plan to subsume its high street operations under the ownership of its investment banking arm.

Sky News has learnt that John McFarlane was called in to see top officials at the central bank several weeks ago following the emergence of a controversial proposal interpreted by some as undermining the spirit of a new regime to protect taxpayers in a future financial crisis.

Under new rules drawn up by Sir John Vickers' Independent Commission on Banking in 2011, banks with more than £25bn of deposits must ring-fence their retail units from their investment banks by the end of 2019.

via Revealed: BoE's Fury At Barclays Reform Plan.