Have our banks really changed? The chancellor assured us in his budget that the banks had “doubled their capital ratios” since the crash. Banker bonuses have supposedly been reined in. According to RBS, the wounded Scottish giant still state-owned after its ignominious collapse, its main focus is now customers, not grandiosity.
But a raft of recent reports has reopened the question. While neither the Competition and Markets Authority or Banking Standards Board see much amiss, the Financial Services Consumer Panel - and even bank chiefs – do.
In Edinburgh, the Islamic Finance Council and the Church of Scotland have launched an initiative to devise new “ethical financial services”, in response to financial institutions “without a social conscience”. While according to another report , Scotland’s banking system is “unsafe and unfit for purpose”.
The latter, produced by a coalition of New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Common Weal and Move Your Money, says Scotland’s banking sector is made up of a “very small number of mega-banks that are failing” in serving customers, companies, and a sustainable and productive economy.
‘Banking for the Common Good’ says we need a national investment bank and locally-rooted people’s banks, to create a more resilient economy in the face of another financial crisis.
Author Gemma Bone, a researcher at Newcastle University says: “The UK missed a big opportunity to reform the banking system after the crisis of 2008, and banking reform has since dropped off the agenda. We show that systemic reform of banking is both possible and desirable.”
Labour MSP Lesley Brennan says: “From credit unions to investment banks, there are many more financially, socially and environmentally sustainable examples both locally and internationally which I believe both the UK and Scottish Governments should draw on and support to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.”
Christine Berry, senior researcher at New Economics Foundation, concludes: “We’re still far too dependent on a small number of very large, very similar shareholder-owned banks with little interest in serving small businesses or rural communities, or in financing the transition to a low-carbon economy.”According to the Competition and Markets Authority, there isn’t much to fix. Its inquiry into retail banking competition suggested last month that monthly overdraft fees could be capped, and it may make further proposals in August. But its first version of the report, which proposed merely a price comparison website and further promotion of account switching, was criticised by the so-called ‘challenger banks’ as being too weak.
Which? said: “This inquiry is now looking like a lost opportunity to deliver better banking for consumers.”
The Banking Standards Board produced its first annual report – and said it was still in fact-finding mode. Ian Cook of the accountants’ institute South of the Border said this would not inspire public confidence, and that the BSB should “start the process of setting standards and demonstrate it is willing to properly hold banks to account for meeting these”.
Even senior bankers can sometimes admit not all is well. Antonio Simoes, HSBC’s chief in the UK and Europe, said last month: “I think the public trust in us might take a generation to re-establish itself.”
Sir Gerry Grimstone, chairman of Standard Life and recently installed on the board of Barclays, has wasted no time in calling for an end to complicated bonus packages for executives. He says a large part of their pay should be in shares which they have to hold for “five or 10 years”.
The Financial Services Consumer Panel, the semi-independent watchdog for the Financial Conduct Authority, has got to the heart of the issue.
It reported last month: “While senior bankers are making all the right noises about culture change, research commissioned by the consumer panel shows that this is not filtering through to the front line. Customers think their bank is only interested in winning new business and not in looking after their best interests; that standards of service have fallen; and that bank staff don’t understand their needs. This is particularly true for micro-business customers, who feel badly let down by their banks.”
Sue Lewis, the consumer panel’s chair, said: “We believe a change in the law is needed to speed up and embed culture change. Under a legal duty of care no bank would, for example, sell a packaged bank account without first checking the customer understood and could benefit from all the elements of the account. Yet that is exactly what banks do now, as evidenced by complaints to the Financial Ombudsman.”
It remains to be seen how the initiative by the Islamic Finance Council and the Church of Scotland to “create ethical financial services” can deliver actual products. But its focus, over 12 to 18 months of research and testing, will be on the financially excluded who cannot benefit from mainstream finance.
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