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It's one of the worse kept secrets in British finance.

Today we've got confirmation that Lloyds Banking Group has been trying to find a way of avoiding the government's Asset Protection Scheme.

It hasn't yet found that way, but the banking giant is considering a rights issue, and conversion of some assets, so that it increases its core capital balances. And on some scale, reported (though not confirmed) to be £25bn in total.

That could be seen as acting as a safety buffer, or a form of insurance, and the bank today said it could avoid the heavy up-front costs of using the UK government's bespoke insurance scheme.

If it can escape that offer - one which originally looked like it couldn't be refused, given the Government is 43% shareholder - then it will have implicitly had insurance on £260bn of troubled/distressed/toxic assets since the scheme was first announced in March, and at no cost whatsoever.

At the end of this turbulent year, the assets look less risky than they did.

So if anyone knows how to insure a car or home on that retrospective basis, let me know, as it sounds quite attractive to the customer.

A European Commission spokesman has told the ´óÏó´«Ã½ today it will rule "within two weeks" on the conditions it will impose on Lloyds in return for approval of state aid. The ruling on the Royal Bank of Scotland may take longer, but it's expected by Christmas.

How significant will it be? There's been lots of speculation, but one sentence in today's Lloyds statement stands out as calming down expectations of the maximal impact: based on the discussions to date with the UK government and European Commission, Lloyds "is confident that the final terms of its restructuring plan, including any required divestments of assets, will not have a material impact on the Group".

The stock market liked the look of that, along with the statement that Lloyds' performance remains "robust" and in line with previous guidance. Lloyds was up 7.5% on the day.

The speculation on the forced sell-offs and break-ups has included most permutations, including Bank of Scotland and/or Halifax being split from Lloyds, or Scottish Widows being put on the market.

Indeed, the only speculation I haven't read is that Lloyds will sell Lloyds - but if that crops up in a headline soon, remember where you saw it first.

A new variation today suggests Lloyds TSB Scotland and Intelligent Finance, an online division of Bank of Scotland, will be put up for sale.

Intelligent Finance was being pared back already, having stopped doing new mortgage and current account business last July.

Just like Cheltenham and Gloucester, it may be revived in order to sell it off, reducing its market share of current accounts and mortgage below the 30% level - the Royal Bank is looking to do the same in England with its RBS branded branches, bringing back the Williams and Glyn name it dropped in 1985.

Lloyds TSB Scotland is relevant for its branch network.

Anyone who knows the average Scottish high street could see that Lloyds was never likely to keep so many branches, when Lloyds TSB was often as reliably close to Bank of Scotland as docken leaves to nettles.

The process of rationalising has not begun, leaving many staff waiting anxiously, and that delay may be because the bank was waiting for the European ruling.

So just supposing Lloyds TSB Scotland's branches are up for sale, who might be interested? Obviously a group without much of an existing presence in Scotland.

A branch network doesn't look like a priority for the newcoming innovators in retail banking, such as Virgin Money and Tesco Bank.

But what about Barclays, or HSBC - neither of which has significant Scottish networks, but which have been showing increasing interest north of the border?

And what would happen to the trust that has been taking a share of Lloyds TSB Scotland profits since the Trustee Savings Bank was floated in 1986? It has fallen out with its funder in recent weeks, at considerable risk to Scotland's charity income?

Update 30 October 1715 GMT

Perhaps someone at UK Financial Investments, the Government's bank stakeholder arm, has been reading this blog.

Today we've had a solution to that apparently free insurance of Lloyds' troubled assets covering the period from March until now.

In order to get out of the government's Asset Protection Scheme, it has emerged that Lloyds would have to pay the government a "break fee" of as much as £2.5bn.