New UK banks to submit proposals to offset UK bank tax

LONDON (Reuters) - A group of new and smaller British banks will on Friday outline proposals to offset a new banking tax which they say will make them less able to compete with larger rivals, the head of the consortium told Reuters.

The group of 11 challenger banks and the British Bankers Association (BBA) will meet with senior officials at the Treasury to discuss the impact of the new tax specifically and ways to make smaller banks and customer-owned lenders more competitive.

"What we are looking to understand is whether or not the government is serious now about matching the talk about fostering competition in UK banking with the walk. And, at this point in time, we haven't seen any walk," Paul Lyman, the head of the BBA's challenger banks panel and chief executive of Secure Trust Bank told Reuters on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Aashika Jain and Matt Scuffham; Editing by Nishant Kumar)