Conversation over weekend dinners inevitably included comment on Sir Fred Goodwin's pension. Most people seem to feel the outrage is justified, and back at the desk this morning I read that Harriet Harman is determined to take action.
I also heard several people comment that there is something worrying about the bloodlust with which people set about someone who becomes a scapegoat for the ills of a system. The villification of one person may make people feel a little better but it doesn't tackle the root of the problem; it doesn't attend to the cracks in a culture that makes such behaviour seem normal. A broader critique comes from HSBC chairman Stephen Green, who is also an ordained Church of England minister. In his book Serving God? Serving Mammon? he explores the ethics of banking, and argued that the banking industry largely lost its moral compass in the last few years, resulting in a "major breakdown in trust".
There's a piece by Russell Lynch published today, in which he quotes Green:
"It is as if, too often, people had given up asking whether something was the right thing to do, and focused only whether it was legal and complied with the rules. The industry needs to recover a sense of what is right and suitable as a key impulse for doing business" [Green] said. He warns that while many bankers did well by their customers, "we must also recognise that there have been too many who have profoundly damaged the industry's reputation".
The boom in complex mortgage-backed securities and an entire alphabet soup of toxic investments - as well as sub-prime loans to those who could never afford them - were driven by a compensation culture which "ran out of control", he said. "Inappropriate products were sold inappropriately by many. Compensation practices ran out of control and perverse incentives led to dangerous outcomes. "There is genuine and widespread anger that the contributors to the crisis were in some cases amongst the biggest beneficiaries of the system." He added: "Underlying all these events is a question about the culture and ethics of the industry." Mr Green is quick to point out that HSBC has "not always been perfect" in this regard, but the bank was ready to play its part in rebuilding public trust with a "more sober and reasonable" approach to compensation. A complete overhaul of rules and regulations is inevitable to improve financial stability in the future, but a more ethical stance is required to have a real impact, he added. "We should remember that no amount of rules and regulation will be sufficient if the culture does not encourage people to do the right thing."
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