World summit to write new finance rules within months

A major summit of global leaders will be held within months to rewrite the rules of the world's financial systems, Gordon Brown announced today.

The Prime Minister revealed the move after telephone talks with President Bush, and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao as well as formal talks with EU leaders at the Brussels summit.

He even suggested there might be a breakthrough in the long running free trade talks that have stalled in recent years.

"I believe a forum to decide on big changes in the international economy can be held in the next few months," he declared. "There is now a general agreement there should be an international leaders' meeting."

Diplomats assumed that the meeting would not be called until the next US President takes office in January, opening the prospect of it becoming one of the first big tests of America's next leader.

Mr Brown said he expected the Group of Eight industrialised nations — the US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia — plus key emerging nations such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa, would take part in November or December.

If the summit goes ahead, it would be a major success for Mr Brown's call for urgent action to avert "the next" financial crisis.

"This is not a time for dealing just with the
current crisis but also preventing the next," he told the Evening Standard after arriving in Brussels. "That's why we must also discuss the next steps that we must now take to transform our financial institutions."

In another breakthrough, he was winning backing
for a plan to bring the 30 biggest financial companies under the oversight of a "college of regulators" by the end of the year. It would bring together separate watchdogs from different countries to improve co-ordination and early warning of future banking disasters. The firms covered are likely to include Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, HSBC, Barclay's, Citibank and BNP Paribas which have major international operations.

The PM signalled that he was willing to raise the level of protection of savers' deposits from the £50,000 limit set last week.