Barclays move to bolster confidence

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The banking giant's shares were down more than 24% at one point on Friday, but its board said in a statement that it knew "no justification for the fall".

The statement said next month the bank expected to report that profits before tax for 2008 were "well ahead" of the £5.3 billion forecast by analysts.

Earlier this week, Barclays announced it planned to cut more than 4,000 jobs across its retail and commercial and investment banking businesses.

Royal Bank of Scotland - which is almost 60% owned by the UK taxpayer - was also hit by diving shares on Friday, with declines of more than 16%.

The turbulence in the sector followed speculation that more financial institutions would look for Government cash.

The falls came on a day that US financial giant Citigroup announced it had suffered a quarterly loss of 8.29 billion US dollars (£5.5 billion), following news that Bank of America was granted 20 billion dollars (£13.7 billion) in State aid.

In Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank is to be nationalised by the Irish Government after a dramatic announcement on Thursday night, while the UK is reportedly thrashing out proposals for another round of bank rescue measures.

The tumbling share prices also came on the day that the ban on short-selling - imposed by the Financial Services Authority last September - expired.

Confidence in the financial sector has collapsed recently, with fears ahead of the forthcoming results season.