LONDON (AFP) - Britain's retail banking sector is in the midst of a major makeover as lenders post sharply-improved earnings, bosses relinquish bonuses and new players prepare to join a recovering market.

Half-way into the earnings season, analysts are lauding a 114-per cent jump in annual profits at Barclays and a narrowing of losses at state-contolled groups Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (LBG).

Following the encouraging results, Britain's leading retail banks have decided to pay out billions of pounds in bonuses to staff.

But fearing a backlash over massive rewards, bosses at Barclays, RBS and LBG have all renounced their own bonuses for 2009.

RBS last week said that its chief executive Stephen Hester had decided to waive his bonus "given public controversy on banking pay and the potential for his bonus to divert attention from and weaken support for the RBS turnaround and recovery."

However, the chief executive defended the bank's decision to allocate a reported 106-billion-pound (S$229.4 billion) bonus pool for other staff, arguing that it was necessary to prevent more workers leaving the beleaguered group.

Lloyds, meanwhile, is preparing to dole out a smaller bonus pool of 200 million pounds, according to reports.

Britain's banking landscape has already undergone huge changes since 2008 owing to major lenders such as RBS and LBG being partly nationalised in the wake of the financial crisis.

The government now owns a hefty 84 per cent of RBS and 41.3 per cent of rival Lloyds.

Meanwhile, Britain's first new high-street bank for more than a century is expected to launch in April, according to recent media reports.

Following the near-collapse of household names, major tycoons have answered calls from finance minister Alistair Darling for greater competition across Britain's retail banking sector.

US billionaire Vernon Hill is close to launching Metro Bank -- set to be Britain's first start-up bank with branches for more than 100 years, reports said last week.

Metro Bank is on course to launch in April with two branches in London, once it receives a banking licence from British regulator the Financial Services Authority.

A spokeswoman for Metro Bank refused to comment on the precise launch date when asked by AFP, or on suggestions that it planned to open 200 stores across London and towns directly neighbouring the capital within the next decade.

Metro Bank aims to distinguish itself from the high-street's established lenders by placing customer service at the heart of its business model.

Branches are set to have toilets, open late and at weekends and allow dogs on the premises, as Hill looks to base Metro Bank on Commerce Bank -- the US business he set up in 1973 and sold for 8.5 billion dollars three years ago.

The billionaire has promised to "make it easy" for people unhappy at the behaviour of Britain's major banks to switch to Metro.

"In London, opening a bank account is like having your teeth drilled. We're going to open accounts in 15 minutes," he was recently quoted as saying.

Elsewhere, Richard Branson's Virgin Money has itself taken big strides towards becoming a major British retail bank.

Virgin Money recently agreed to buy regional private bank Church House and to use the lender as a platform to offer savings and mortgage products to customers under the Virgin Money brand, which is known for its popular credit card and insurance offerings.

The purchase is seen as providing a platform for Virgin Money to buy an even bigger bank, providing true competition to Britain's biggest retail lenders.

In addition, Britain's biggest retailer, supermarket giant Tesco, has launched moves aimed at attracting savers and borrowers to Tesco Bank -- which currently provides services similar to Virgin Money.

A more established player, Spanish banking giant Santander, recently declared that it wants to become Britain's biggest bank.

Chairman Emilio Botin has said that the ambitious group "wants to be the number one bank in the UK" and may buy more assets from struggling rivals.

Santander is Europe's second biggest bank by stock market capitalization after number one HSBC, which publishes its annual results on Monday.

Santander, which acquired British mortgage lender Abbey in 2004 for 9.2 billion pounds, expanded further into Britain last year by scooping up Alliance & Leicester and assets of troubled lender Bradford & Bingley.

Britain's retail banking sector was thrown into chaos by the global credit crunch, resulting in the nationalisation of Northern Rock and multi-billion-pound bailouts of RBS and Lloyds.

LBG was created last year following a government-brokered deal to merge ailing HBOS bank with its stronger rival Lloyds TSB. Virgin Money failed in a bid to buy Northern Rock before it fell into state hands.