Gordon Brown declared the era of big City bonuses was over as he called for bankers who took irresponsible risks to be "punished".
Following Wednesday's historic £500 billion bail-out plan, the Prime Minister spoke of his anger at the way banks had been operating.
With many voters clearly furious it would be the taxpayer who picked up the bill for banks' mistakes, Mr Brown said he would be going around the country to explain why the rescue was necessary.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called on the Prime Minister to take action to remove the senior bank executives responsible for the crisis.
Meanwhile Work and Pensions Minister Tony McNulty became the first member of the Government to publicly acknowledge Britain could be heading for a recession.
"The success of yesterday's (Wednesday) announcements will be the precursor to how deep and how long the recession will be," he told BBC2's The Daily Politics.
"We're slowly getting to a stage where the slowdown may well turn technically into recession and then we'll be talking about the nature and depth of the recession."
In an interview with GMTV, Mr Brown said he shared the public anger at the damage the banks had done done to the economy.
He said: "I am angry too. I am angry at irresponsible behaviour. Our economy is built around people who work hard, who show effort, who take responsible decisions, and where there is excessive and irresponsible risk-taking, that has got to be punished."
However, pressed later on what form of punishment he had in mind, the Prime Minister's spokesman said only that he did not want to see irresponsible risk-taking rewarded.
