According to Sky News, the governor of the Bank of England (BoE) Andrew Bailey said during a call with bank chief executives on Tuesday that they should accelerate planning for the UK ending the transition period at the end of the year without an agreement. 

The instruction came at an interesting time as the final round of the UK-EU trade talks before the end-of-June deadline got underway this week. The negotiations are to end on Friday, and a breakthrough seems unlikely.

Insiders told Sky News that executives from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, the taxpayer-backed lender, participated in the call with Bailey.

The BoE declined to comment on the talks.