Lloyds Banking Group is at loggerheads with the City watchdog over its plan to resume dividend payments. Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio wants to pay a small dividend in 2014 from the profits he expects the bank to make next year. It would be the first payout since the government took a 43 per cent stake in a £20billion Lloyds rescue deal in 2008. But the Financial Services Authority is threatening to block the move because it thinks the bank should instead use the cash to bolster its defences against a possible eurozone break-up. ‘We have always said we would like to recommence dividend payments, when the financial position of the group and market conditions permit, and after regulatory capital requirements are defined and prudently met,’ a Lloyds spokesman said last night.....Read more here: Lloyds and FSA clash over plan to resume dividend payments