The newspaper, without citing sources, said the talks were at an early stage and part of a broader exchange on how to battle the turmoil in financial markets, which has continued despite the injection by central banks of billions of dollars of liquidity and cuts in interest rates. The Bank of England (BoE) appears to be most enthusiastic to explore the idea, which would involve the use of public money to shore up the market in a key financial instrument, the FT said. The US Federal Reserve is open to the idea in principle, but only as a last resort, while the European Central Bank (ECB) is less keen, it said.

Full story: abc.net.au