G20 fail to agree on bank tax

(Reuters): The world’s top economies scrapped plans for a universal global bank tax on Saturday, giving countries plenty of wiggle room over how to make banks pay for their bailouts in future. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries ended a two-day meeting to review progress on a string of initiatives agreed last year to make the financial system safer and protect taxpayers from having to pay for bank rescues again. Attempts to introduce a global bank levy were finally ditched in the face of opposition from Japan Canada and Brazil whose banks needed no public aid during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.