Ex-HBOS director says experienced bankers might have saved it It was the aggressive growth not the quantum [of wholesale funding] that was the problem. When markets have lost confidence, the amount [of funding] you want becomes partially irrelevant... You won't get it," he said. If HBOS had not had liquidity problems, it might not have failed. The worst risks were in Mr Mitchell's division, which lost £10bn in 2008 under his successor Peter Cummings, but he claimed they were all taken after he left the bank. Mr Cummings is the only former HBOS executive to have been censured by the regulator but Mr Mitchell said he had a "very high regard for Peter" and that the regulator's description of his actions was "not the Peter I recognise." Mr Mitchell claimed that had he remained head of corporate between 2006 and 2008 it would have grown more slowly. Corporate lending is all about knowing when to lend and at what part of the cycle. When I left it was becoming increasingly difficult to source transactions with the right risk profile," he said. I find it difficult to believe I'd have been growing corporate at that speed [from 2006]. It's all about taking risk responsibly. I expected corporate to slow quite dramatically. Under Mr Hornby's leadership, corporate's profit target was doubled in 2006 to growth of 18pc, and to 35pc the following year. Its important to know where you are in the cycle. It wasn't they type of lending but the quantum of growth - and that doesn't just go for corporate but the whole of HBOS," Mr Mitchell said. Whilst it postdates my departure, I think it is fair to say that more directors with direct banking experience may have been beneficial as the financial crisis took hold.