The Bank of England figures the U.S. and European financial industries combined will lose $2.8 trillion in the credit crunch before it’s all done.

“The instability of the global financial system in recent weeks … has been the most severe in living memory,” Bank of England Deputy Governor John Gieve said in a speech this week as the bank released its bi-annual report on financial stability.

“The financial system remains under acute strain.”

Meanwhile, pressure builds for the U.K., now facing its first recession in years, to cut the interest rate. The current benchmark rate there is 4.5 percent.

Bank of England policy maker David Blanchflower this week that interest rates "do need to come down significantly — and quickly."

"If rates are not cut aggressively we do face the prospect of a relatively deep and long-lasting recession," Blanchflower said in a speech.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, too, has supported the argument that the bank’s 2 percent inflation target can be kept as the world economy slows, even with a cut in rates.

"The global challenges we face today are no reason for changing the remit of the Bank of England. The objective, price stability, is the right one,” Darling said in a speech, also this week.

“The means of achieving it, by inflation targeting, is right too."