The mantra of competitiveness needs to be dropped more broadly than just in the context of UK financial services.

I don't think so.

A shared surplus  cooperative enterprise model operating 'Not for Loss' - in which there are no returns to rentiers - will out-compete the existing 'For Profit' model which does pay returns to rentiers.

So I'm all in favour of competition and turning the rhetoric upon its proponents. Bloated^TM and Unproductive^TM rentiers are unnecessary and Uncompetitive^TM.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky