The UK Treasury will be paying for the support it provided to banks during the financial crisis for years to come, but it is now unlikely that taxpayers will have to pay out on the government guarantees given to those financial institutions, a report on the financial stability of UK banks showed on Wednesday.

The National Audit Office report said the maximum the taxpayer could now pay out, were the supported banks to fail, has fallen to £512bn from £955bn at the peak of the financial crisis in 2008.