The plan included $250bn for bank recapitalisation, an idea so at odds with the US free market tradition that even its author Hank Paulson admitted it was “objectionable”, and a sovereign guarantee for new bank debt – the most sweeping government intervention in the US financial sector since the Great Depression. The US treasury secretary said: “Government owning a stake in any private US company is objectionable to most Americans, me included. Yet the alternative of leaving businesses and consumers without access to financing is totally unacceptable.”

As part of the plan, the government will inject half the total, $125bn, into nine banks – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon and State Street.

Under the government's take-it-or-leave-it offer, Bank of America (including Merrill Lynch which it is acquiring), JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, will each get $25bn in government funds, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley $10bn each, and Bank of New York Mellon and State Street between $2bn and $3bn each.