SCOTLAND’S overweening banking sector could leave the country “devastated” by a post-independence economic crisis, industry analysts have claimed.

The Scottish government yesterday recoiled at figures from trade publication The Banker warning that an independent Scotland could be critically exposed to a repeat of 2008’s financial meltdown, with banking assets around a dozen times the size of Scotland’s entire GDP.

Britain’s banking sector controls assets worth £5.8 trillion, roughly four times the size of GDP.

But were Scotland to split following September’s referendum, its Scottish-headquartered banks would still account for £1.5trn — far in excess of the new nation’s GDP of £128.4bn.

The Banker editor Brian Caplen said the vast scale of the sector would prove “ruinous” in the event of a run on the banks, as it had for Iceland in 2008 when the sector had outstripped GDP at a ratio of 10:1.

“Had it been independent during the financial crisis, there is little doubt that an independent Scotland would have been devastated and forced to turn to the IMF for help,” he said.

A Better Together spokesman said the report was proof that a Yes vote would jeopardise Scotland’s economy, while a Scottish government spokesman said the “outdated” figures did not “reflect the reality of Scotland’s financial sector.”

But economist and Tax Justice Network campaigner John Christensen said he hoped both camps in the independence debate would seek to address the root causes.

Mr Christensen said it was clear policymakers could no longer ignore the “finance curse” — that an unchecked financial sector became a cuckoo in the nest, draining skills, investment and tax revenue from the real economy even as it plied lawmakers with illusory growth.

Britain was already unquestionably gripped by the curse, but without a radical overhaul of SNP economic policy independence could only strengthen its hold on Scotland.

“That’s going to put a lot more pressure on Scotland’s economy,” Mr Christensen said.

“We’ll find that all the bright young people with good educations and skills will be attracted into that industry, forcing even more of a resource shift away from genuinely productive parts of the economy.”