The Bank of England will prevent future financial crises by "taking away the punchbowl" from bankers, Sir Mervyn King has vowed.
The Bank is "up to the task" of resuming responsibility for regulating the City next year, its governor told the BBC Today Programme Lecture, and would step in to prevent lenders over-extending themselves again.
A new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) as part of the Bank will take control of regulating the City next year, but Sir Mervyn said further reform was "essential".
He urged the Government to bring in the Independent Commission on Banking's recommendations to force banks to separate their retail and casino-style investment banking arms sooner rather than later.
Sir Mervyn said: "The Bank's new Financial Policy Committee will have the power to step in and prevent a hangover by taking away the punchbowl just as the party in the financial system is getting going."
He added: "That won't make us popular among bankers, politicians and even at times some of you, and it's not supposed to. But it will, I hope, reflect the trust and confidence that the citizens of this country can place in the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street."
He admitted the Bank should have "shouted from the rooftops" that banks had been allowed to borrow and lend too much. And it should have done more to convince the Government to recapitalise banks sooner.
The root of the last crisis was that banks over-extended their activities in the run-up to the financial crisis, with their balance sheets increasing from around a half of national income to more than five times in a generation.
He blamed light-touch regulation and said a decision to take away the power of regulation from the Bank in 1997 returned "to haunt us".
Measures have now been put in place to allow banks to fail and to force lenders to build up greater reserves of cash to make future bail-outs less likely. And the FPC, which will come into force next year, will see the Bank take control of regulation again, when the Financial Services Authority is disbanded.
