Customer-friendly promises from banks are coming thick and fast. Royal Bank of Scotland's offer of a six-month moratorium on repossessions on Monday was followed by Lloyds TSB's small business charter yesterday.

While welcome, they will not greatly improve the treatment of most customers. RBS would rarely start trying to seize defaulters' homes in less than six months, anyway. The Lloyds' promise to pass on base rate cuts in full to business overdraft customers is no more than what it is contractually obliged to do in most cases.

It suits both the bankers and their new political masters that banks are seen to be trying a little harder to accommodate struggling borrowers, corporate or personal. But not much, operationally, has to change as a result of these initiatives. Lloyds still has enough wriggle room to penalise or dump difficult customers.

Today's expected announcement - that the banking code is to be put on a statutory footing - has the same smell about it. Ministers need to be seen to be doing something. But shifting the responsibilities of the Banking Code Standards Board to the Financial Services Authority is unlikely to have bankers quaking.

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