Britain's banking system is less financially sound than banks in Botswana – or even Iceland – according to a survey of business opinion carried out for the World Economic Forum.

Business leaders in Britain rated UK banks a mere 44th in the world for solvency, well behind countries in Africa and Latin America including Senegal, Botswana, El Salvador - and even behind Iceland, whose three main banks have all been taken into national ownership after collapsing into financial turmoil this week.

The United States was rated 40th in the survey of executives around the world on the relative health of their national economies.

Top of the league in the executive opinion survey came banks in Canada, which were awarded a rating of 6.8 out of 7 by Canadian businesspeople. Under the scoring system, 7 is taken to represent banks that are generally healthy with sound balance sheets, and 1 is when banks are felt to be insolvent and in need of a …