THE dictionary defines it as "a potentially disastrous situation, typically caused by negligent or faulty procedures".
It is hard to imagine a better illustration of "an accident waiting to happen" than the fate that befell HBOS, culminating in September 2008 when it was rescued by Lloyds and bailed out with £20bn from the public purse, which is why the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards chooses the expression as the title of today's stinging report on the HBOS debacle.
Throughout their evidence, the men who ran the bank, following the 2001 merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, portrayed themselves as the hapless victims of unforeseeable circumstances. Only Peter Cummings, former head of the bank's corporate division, was fined and banned from working in the City by the now defunct Financial Services Authority (FSA). By contrast the former chairman, Lord Stevenson, and chief executives Sir James Crosby and Andy Hornby have escaped sanction and have continued in high-profile roles in business and elsewhere. In fact, with impeccable timing, Sir James resigned and was appointed deputy chairman of the FSA in 2006.
Today's report puts the blame firmly where it belongs and invites the FSA's more muscular successor bodies to consider banning all three men from working elsewhere in the UK financial sector. It utterly rejects the notion that they were hapless victims of the 2008 crash and describes the HBOS story as "one of catastrophic failures of management, governance and regulatory oversight". The bank's rapid growth following the merger was the result not of superior performance but of a reckless high-risk strategy, which resulted in huge losses in not only the corporate but also the international and treasury divisions of the bank. Without government intervention, these losses would have resulted in insolvency, concludes the report.
These conclusions will be cold comfort to hard-working, modestly rewarded HBOS staff and to the Bank of Scotland account holders who regularly wrote to The Herald complaining that their friendly local branches were being transformed into high-pressure sales operations following the Halifax merger. Instead of operating its notorious "light-touch regulation", the FSA should have been listening to those like whistle blower Paul Moore, who warned about the bank's risky practices back in 2004. The appointment of Sir James Crosby to the city watchdog personifies a relationship between regulator and regulated that, under the Labour Government, became far too cosy.
RBS's Fred Goodwin has become synonymous with the hubris and recklessness of the banking industry, while Crosby has so far both avoided censure and kept his knighthood. He should not escape with impunity.
If the culture of British banking is to change, the sector needs to own up to its past mistakes. This week's report into Barclay's role in the libor-fixing scandal suggests a willingness to do that, although the seven-figure reward packages still going to hundreds of senior staff imply that old habits die hard. Andrew Tyrie and his committee have done an excellent job but nothing will change unless in future those responsible for bank failures are held more directly accountable and made to face the music.
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