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Chancellor Alistair Darling has praised supermarket chain Tesco, after it announced on Thursday that it will be creating 800 new jobs in Scotland.
The supermarket's personal finance unit will be opening a customer centre in Scotland and creating a move to provide full banking services.
Speaking ahead of a visit to the company's Edinburgh offices, Darling told Radio 4's Today programme: "We do need more competition in the system. The last couple of years has seen a significant reduction in the number of people, both from abroad and British-based banks, who are lending into the market.
"We need more competition and that's something that we intend to encourage."
Discussing bonuses, Darling said banks needed to be responsible about the additional salary paid to staff.
"What I am extremely concerned about is getting back into a situation where people in banks are incentivised through bonuses to take risks which could result in a bank being brought down," he said.
"We've seen that in the past and we can't allow it to happen again."
The chancellor also expressed concerns that banks must be responsible about pay and bonuses, as key workers could be lost to other countries such as America or Switzerland.
"This is something that I think we do need to tackle overall and it will be discussed by the G20 finance ministers in September," he said.
The new Tesco office will be opened in central Glasgow during the first half of 2010.
Britain's biggest supermarket also wants to provide a full banking service, with the Edinburgh-based Tesco Personal Finance already catering for six million customers.
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