Britain urges global solution to crisis

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday the global financial crisis required a global solution and urged other countries to adopt Britain's actions to save the banking system.

Other governments should follow Britain in putting money into struggling banks and offering guarantees worth hundreds of billions to persuade banks to start lending to each other, Brown wrote in an article in The Times newspaper.

"The stability and restructuring programme for Britain that we announced this week is the first to address at one and the same time the three essential components of a modern banking system -- sufficient liquidity, funding and capital," he said.

"But because this is a global problem, it requires a global solution."

Brown proposed that after this week's G7 and IMF meetings there should be a "leaders' meeting in which we must lay down the principles and the new policies for restructuring our banking and financial system all around the globe."

He called for governments to adopt cross-border rules on transparency and the highest standards of conduct to guard against irresponsible risk-taking.

A new system of supervision should also be introduced to cope with the huge flows of capital between financial institutions, he said.

"The old solutions of yesterday will not serve us well for the challenges of today and tomorrow. So we must leave behind outworn dogmas and embrace new solutions," said Brown.

"So as we reform our financial system we should encourage hard work, effort, enterprise and responsible risk-taking -- qualities that markets need to ensure, so that the rewards that flow are seen to be fair," he said.