by Anthony Bonneville
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for bankers.
Barclays has been caught with its fingers in the proverbial till again. A new mis-selling scandal has been unveiled featuring all our favourite banking villains. And Nat West meanwhile fails to perform even the most basic of tasks one would expect from a bank.
The cry has gone up, “something must be done,” and in government, this means inquiries, reports, sage deliberations and, ultimately, nothing happening to the banks who, by an astonishing coincidence, are also substantial donors and lobbyists.
Meanwhile Joris Luyendijk’s excellent blogs in the Guardian continue to reveal the mentality of some people in financial services and the potentially toxic culture that they are immersed in and inevitably affected by.
One of the finest examples of this is the interview with a senior regulator, who advises,
“Banks are fundamentally amoral places. They are not immoral; morality simply has no part in the decision-making process. They talk about ‘reputational risk’, not about right and wrong decisions”
He’s not wrong. The resignation statement of Barclay’s chairman Marcus Agius (before he unresigned himself and took charge again following Bob Diamond’s exit) declares.
“We will establish a zero-tolerance policy for any actions that harm the reputation of the bank.”
Not even zero tolerance for actions that could harm the reputation of the bank. This form of words rather unfortunately leaves the door open to an interpretation that Barclays staff are being enjoined not to “do no wrong” but “don’t get caught”.
Bob Diamond followed suit yesterday with the type of heartfelt of mea culpa that restores public faith in bankers’ conscience and integrity,
“The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise”
Or maybe not.
Clearly then, it is a vain hope that the bad banks will keep their own house in order, so what is the solution?
