"We are convinced that we will be able to bring in investors interested" in the bad bank's assets, he added.

BBC: Spain does not need a bailout - Luis de Guindos

Treasury's plan to remove bad assets from bank balance sheets could help.

FORBES: The President

The nationalisation comes after the European Commission blocked an earlier plan that would have seen the country's other large banks, Rabobank, ING and ABN Amro, contribute capital to a so-called "bad bank" to house SNS Reaal's distressed property assets.

CNN: Netherlands nationalizes SNS Reaal

Bo Lundgren, one of the architects of Sweden's much-vaunted 1990s bank bail-out, stresses the importance of transparent valuations of bad assets.

ECONOMIST: Meltdown may have been averted. But the crunch is not over

Mervyn King's remarks that he wants to see RBS's poisonous and low quality assets hived off into a new so-called bad bank matter - but probably not in the way that seems most obvious.

BBC: Will RBS sell Coutts?