Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said the ??vast majority? of the nation??s banks are well-capitalised and damped investor fears that the government will wipe out their holdings.
The aggregate deficit of corporate UK pension funds reached more than £250bn in March, setting a record for a shortfall due in large part to the drop in gilt yields.
After the US Treasury changed the rules of its $1,000bn toxic assets plan, hedge funds and small fund companies could get government loans to buy troubled securities from banks.
A UK court has frozen more than $100m worth of assets belonging to Stanford International Bank (SIB) as US regulators ramp up their efforts to track how funds flowed between the complex web of international companies formerly controlled by Sir Allen Stanford.