UK bankers will no longer have to prove their innocence of wrongdoing under new rules proposed by the government.
Currently, the Treasury requires bankers to prove they either did not know about wrongdoing, or prove that they took appropriate steps to prevent wrongdoing.
Under the new rules, which will cover the whole of the UK's financial sector from March 2016, not just the banking industry, senior managers will still be required do what they can to prevent the rules from being broken.
It will, therefore, be up to financial regulators to prove that managers were aware of, or didn't take the right steps to prevent, rule breaking.
But there are some senior figures in the banking industry that believe the new rules will make little difference.
Andrew Bailey, deputy governor of the Bank of England and head of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said: "This change is one of process, not substance. The focus for firms and individuals should be on complying with both the letter and the spirit of the rules, rather than considering ways to circumvent them."
Ring-fencing retail
Separately, the Bank of England said that the UK's biggest banks will need to hold billions more in capital when new rules on ring-fencing come in, in 2019.
The new rules will force any bank with deposits of more than £25 billion - HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander UK and Co-operative Bank - to "ring-fence" their retail operations from their more risky investment banking operations.
The rules are designed to reduce the risk of the government having to bail out banks in the event of a future financial crisis.
The Bank of England said the banks will have to hold an extra £2.2-3.3bn worth of capital to satisfy the rules.
