Barclays Bank is doing its best to shake up the investment side of the business and is taking huge strides into retail banking by bringing the ING Direct UK business into the fold. Dutch lender ING Groep were the owners and the move by Barclays is a big signal from their new CEO, Antony Jenkins, who wants to ensure the bank distances itself from the recent LIBOR rate rigging scandal and the fines it was given as a result.

Barclays will be taking control of around £10.9 billion of deposits and a mortgage book with a value of £5.6 billion. ING Direct UK - which has 750 staff and one-and-a-half million customers - posted big losses in 2011 and it's been up for sale since August.

In a statement Barclays says it's delighted about the purchase: "We intend to maintain the high standard of service and honour the existing terms and conditions they have experienced with ING Direct UK." In light of quite a few mergers and takeovers in the British banking sector in recent years, nothing's set in stone just yet because bank regulators will check over the details of the deal before deciding whether or not to approve it.

Written and presented by Marverine Cole.